Friday, June 21:
Anxious night, whose distress reaches such heights that I almost fear insanity; worry about the children, fear of meeting people, worry about R.’s lack of peace to work in. I fear my physical and moral strength will give out and I shall not be able to complete my work. The morning dispels the ghosts.
At breakfast R. tells me he is thinking of depicting the German character once again in great depth. “Gaiety, that is what characterizes us Germans and so distinguishes us from the Latin races. This feature is expressed most pregnantly in Goethe’s Faust, which one has only to compare with Dante’s epic to see the difference in spirit. This benevolent gaiety is our aristocratic feature, which we have preserved as we have preserved our various aristocratic families. It makes us akin to the Greeks (though they did not possess it to the same degree), while the Latin nations have inherited from the Romans the inability to appreciate a joke. Only in Cervantes can I recognize something of the German spirit.”
We come to the subject of Die Walküre: “How does the King feel? Has he no idea what he has done to me by producing it? I believe, however, that he has that arrogant streak in him which cares little for the sufferings of plebeians, like that English lord in Frau Wille’s novel who considers it quite natural that common citizens should shed their blood for him.” I cannot get over my astonishment that R. should have noticed this, but when it comes to any significant factor, he perceives it, grabs hold of it, and remembers it.
Johannes Konze is praising our festival theater in his paper; “that is the last straw!” And while I am downstairs with the children, R. comes and says, “Nothing is spared us. Pusinelli writes in an offended way about the letter from V. Hugo, which he takes to be genuine!” The recantation was made in a very subdued manner by the gentleman in Mannheim, for no one wants to spoil his relationship with the press!
R. works in spite of all the surrounding discomfort. In the afternoon various visitors, among them the mayor. In the evening the Svendsens, who are going to Kassel, where they will see my father. First very warm summer’s day.