Thursday, August 31:
Our friend intends to climb Mount Pilatus, and under adverse weather conditions. R. works, but he is tired; Herr Brassin’s conversation was a great strain on him. Family lunch. Letter to Loulou from Aunt Isa; she wishes to see her, which always gives me troubled thoughts. There is an article on Karl Tausig in the Signale by Hans; this, Hans exactly as I know him, makes no very favorable impression on us.
In the afternoon I visit Countess Bassenheim; heavy thunderstorm. When I return home I find R. in a very despondent mood. He says he has been drawing up the balance of his life and that, as I might imagine, I came out well in it; but he felt as if he were standing with me and Fidi on the top of Mont Blanc, abandoned in this solitary desert. It was not just outwardly that everything had fallen away from him; no, it had crumbled within. I could see, he said, how hopeless he became when I left the house, if only for a single hour, how he cursed the world.
We read Carlyle. At Countess B.’s I learn with dismay that they are staging a Wagner week in Munich and are performing Rheingold and Walkuere again! Probably they want to make money.