Thursday, March 14:
R. had a bad night with terrible dreams; he wanted to play the Bach Prelude and it had to be done on chopped meat, there was none available, Fidi was suddenly missing, whisperings, forebodings, a scream, awakening. 'Then I start yodeling,' laughs R. 'Can our dear Lord find nothing better to do than torment a poor genius like me?!'
Letter to me from Herr Glasenapp, which I put in the corner cupboard along with the monographs of Ludw. Geyer and Adolph Wagner; it is again full of items of family news, very touching also on account of its final words regarding Parsifal. However, R. says, 'I had very few thoughts on the German people while I was writing it, but I understand what he means: feelings like that are always slumbering inside one.'
Around lunchtime R. plays me the introduction to the second act, Klingsor's approach and the raging of sin; it is glorious. After lunch R. returns to the difficulties of tempo. In the morning he talked about Beethoven's early sonatas and their youthful beauty. During an incredible snowstorm in the afternoon, I walk up to the theater with the children, to see about costumes. Tea with friend Gross; the contract from Munich here, a few points unacceptable. Returning home, I find R. in the salon between the first movement of his symphony and the sketches; he greets me with the words 'I have just composed a trio for the Scherzo of my symphony,' and he plays it to me. I: 'It's a veritable composing factory here!' Laughter! He inquires about the contract, insists on the repayment of my 52,000 marks from the proceeds of Parsifal, which hurts me very much, and deeply, but I let it pass, so as not to spoil R.'s splendidly cheerful spirits.
Several times today R. says, 'Now I have got into my stride.' When I tell him about my lessons, that I gave a 'lecture' on Demetrius Poliorcetes, he says, 'Greek history ends up just like the Iliad, all these people are like Homer's heroes, but they cover an enormous field.' At lunch friend Wolzogen remarks that the linen drapers Israel have supplied us with many actors. R. is still reading Lichtenberg and quotes a lot from him, the growing pains of books, for example, and the irony of Lord Chesterfield; R. hopes to have achieved this tone of mild irony in his essay, 'Modern.' Waverley in the evening.
To conclude the evening downstairs R. plays me the opening of his symphony, truly magnificent. R. says one can see in it the overpowering influence of Beethoven's works, as far as a young man of 20 can know and understand them, and, dismayed as it were by the impressions of the latter, he had attempted to link onto the 2nd Symphony. The way Mendelssohn tried to ignore it by having it disappear was very curious: 'This symphony was certainly an unpleasant surprise to him.' Talked in the evening about Victor Hugo. 'To the extent that the French can be poets, he is a poet.' R. places his Notre-Dame de Paris above Les Misérables, if only because of its love and knowledge of old Paris, which was quite unknown to the French before him; its influence extended as far as the Mousquetaires. Before our affectionate parting for the night, which cannot in fact part us, I tell R. that Glasenapp had been seeking 'Minna and Klara' in spirit at the performance of Rienzi in Riga. 'Oh, yes, I have left a lot of people behind.' 'Do you miss any of them?' 'No. The worry over losing something I have learned only since living with you.'