Saturday 2nd (October 2nd, 1875)

While R. is engaged in meetings, I look through my accounts, set down what has been expended this quarter, and am startled at the sum of eight thousand two hundred and some florins. – After we had breakfasted, R. read aloud to me the fine chapter of Trevrezent [1] in “Parzival”, and said we must seize the morning, for the day itself brings nothing but hardships, and indeed the burdens are multiplying. The contract with the Cabinet Treasury, Voltz and Batz, the household, the director Herr Scherbarth, [2] who will not release Herr Unger, Herr Fürstner lurking in the background, Vienna before us (with the “one-eyed Swedish Jew,” [3] as R. says, for Tannhäuser); and then our dogs, sent us from the Director in Zahna, afflicted with the mange—everywhere fraud, where not sheer stupidity. R. declares, if any should come to congratulate him on his energy, on his genius, he could leap out of his skin! …