Sunday, June 18:
R. has had a very bad night in consequence of the weather, which has now changed entirely; it is wet and cold again. Prof. Nietzsche sends back Siegfrieds Tod; he has copied it out himself. With it he also sends his essay.
R. arranges his first four volumes and writes the foreword to the third and fourth volumes, which he reads to me in the afternoon. In the evening we read his sketch for Wieland der Schmied, whose third act in particular I find extremely gripping.
We are suddenly called outside: the mountains are lit up, for the Pope’s jubilee; others think for the Gotthard railroad the Catholic gentlemen have very cunningly conjured up the semblance of a festival virtually everywhere. When Eva sees the illuminations she cries, “That is Germany.” In the garden Fidi is Laertes, on his rocking horse the Great Elector. Begin copying for the King.