Sunday, September 4:
The children and I finish reading Beethoven with Stein, then Lusch and I play the Prelude to Götterdämmerung, after which R. reads his article to me, and I float in the sublime. At lunch we had Herr Humperdinck, whom R. is able to praise for the way he accompanied Marianne Brandt. R. and I go for a walk; it is a fine day, the life of the dogs here a complete idyll. R. turns the fountain on, is pleased with it, appears as Wotan in a blue robe, and in the evening reads to us many poems by Hafiz. Beforehand he insisted on having the whole household, along with our friends, admire the fountain.
While I am changing upstairs, he enlarges upon music and melody, and at the conclusion of the evening he wonders whether he will perhaps be entirely forgotten, ousted by someone who will make things easier for the audience. However, he concludes, “it won’t be easy to make it easy.”