Thursday, June 15:
R. still not well; I tremble with fear that, once he has started composing, legal annoyances will interrupt him.
Döllinger’s statement, signed by various people, pleases us very much, and R. says: “To people who think there is nothing positive about it, one should reply that it is already something when someone says, ‘I will not tolerate it.’ To oppose and destroy a lie is to serve truth.”
Family lunch in the garden, all in very good cheer. R. says: “Oh, if only I could make up my mind to abandon the art of the future, how good I should feel! But then I should have to make up my mind to let the King have the two last works as well, and then make money with them in other theaters, and that would be a bit too much cynicism.”
R. is not well, and his mood toward evening is again depressed, which makes me sad, too. We had to laugh recently when we read in the newspaper that all the theater managers had held a conference for the purpose of promoting art. Is perhaps the specter of Bayreuth looming in their minds?