From Paris I went as usual to Oustiloug for the summer, and there I quietly continued my work on the 'Sacre'. I was roused from that peaceful existence by an invitation from Diaghileff to join him at Bayreuth to hear Parsifal in its hallowed setting. I had never seen Parsifal on the stage. The proposal was tempting, and I accepted it with pleasure. On the way I stopped at Nuremberg for twenty-four hours and visited the museum. Next day my dear, portly friend met me at the Bayreuth station and told me that we were filled to overflowing. We managed, however, with great difficulty, to find two servants’ rooms. The performance that I saw there would not tempt me today, even if I were offered a room gratis. The very atmosphere of the theatre, its design and its setting, seemed lugubrious. It was like a crematorium, and a very old-fashioned one at that, and one expected to see the gentleman in black who had been entrusted with the task of singing the praises of the departed. The order to devote oneself to contemplation was given by a blast of trumpets. I sat humble and motionless, but at the end of a quarter of and hour I could bear no more. My limbs were numb and I had to change my position. Crack! Now I had done it! My chair had made a noise which drew down on me the furious scowls of a hundred pairs of eyes. Once more I withdrew into myself, but I could think of only one thing, and that was the end of the act which would put an end to my martyrdom. At last the intermission arrived and I was rewarded by two sausages and a glass of beer. But hardly had I had time to light a cigarette when the trumpet blast sounded again, demanding another period of contemplation. Another act to be got through, when all my thoughts were concentrated on my cigarette, of which I had had barely a whiff. I managed to bear the second act. Then there were more sausages, more beer, another trumpet blast, another period of contemplation, another act-finis! / I do not want to discuss the music of Parsifal or the music of Wagner in general. At this date it is too remote from me. What I find revolting in the whole affair is the underlying conception which dictated it- the principle of putting a work of art on the same level as the sacred and symbolic ritual which constitutes a religious service. And, indeed, is not all this comedy of Bayreuth, with its ridiculous formalities, simply an unconscious aping of a religious rite? / Perhaps someone may cite the mysteries of the Middle Ages in contravention of this view. But those performances had religion as their basis and faith as their source. The spirit of the mystery plays did not venture beyond the bosom of the Church which patronized them. They were religious ceremonies bordering on the canonical rites, and such aesthetic qualities as they might contain were merely accessory and unintentional, and in no way affected their substance. Such ceremonies were due to the imperious desire of the faithful to see the objects of their faith incarnate and in palpable from – the same desire as that which created statues and ikons in the churches. /It is high time to put an end, once and for all, to this unseemly and sacrilegious conception of art as religion and the theatre as a temple. << less