Monday, May 5:
Much, much trouble and sorrow over my little surprise for R.'s birthday; no one is really helping me! R. works on his orchestration, but has vexations as well—for the people in Cologne, instead of sending 3,000 thalers, send only 1,000 "for the time being."
Over coffee I open Aeschylus at random and am astonished by the scornful answer of the seventh Fury to Orestes ("In the dead put then thy confidence, thou slayer of thy mother"). I tell R. that in my memory these things always seem more emphatic, more general in tone, and I am continually amazed by their personal, Shakespearean manner. R. agrees with me and says that, particularly in view of the huge theaters and the use of masks and buskins, the effect of this liveliness of speech ("in Sophocles the chorus in fact lies throughout") is impossible to imagine—particularly in the comedy of Aristophanes. "How could the audience follow it at that distance? I can only conclude that the Greeks saw and heard things in a quite different way from us stay-at-homes and spectacle wearers."
We talk about the battles of these chosen people—Plataea in particular fascinates R.; he says one cannot study it too closely, so interesting is it. In the afternoon to the house; from our architect we hear curious things! Count Castell has made an offer to the King to buy up all the free entrances to the palace gardens for 90,000 florins—just so that entry can be denied us! Poor Bayreuth, otherwise completely forgotten, has suddenly become an object of governmental intrigue. The King has not consented to the proposal; the good people can keep their entrances, which they have held since the time of the margraves, and we shall perhaps be allowed ours. I now recall that Frau v. Lerchenfeld once asked me whether I "already had a key," whereupon I replied, "Before there is a key there must be a door."
R. was in conversation with Feustel, wishing Feustel a substantial political career. They talked about conditions in Germany, and Feustel said that, without a tremendous customs barrier between us and foreign lands (France), Germany would never achieve prosperity. Now, for example, there was no cash available, because the Germans had paid the 5 billions, and the money was lying in the government's coffers. The Jews favored free trade, because they did not care about Germany, and anyway the Jews prefer to get their goods from foreign parts and not from their German neighbors, to whom they begrudge everything. But if one were to put forward this measure, the entire insipid liberal sector (Jewish) would raise a storm of protest—only in time of dire need could it be imposed by a wise despot. But Germans are so lacking in any sort of self-confidence that, if there had been even an infinitesimal reverse instead of Wörth and Weissenburg, our troops would have been unable, owing to lack of funds, to make a move forward, for of the loan of 100 million scarcely eighty had been paid. The French, said Feustel, had not only surrounded themselves with a customs barrier and become self-supporting, but also exacted terrible customs duties from the goods they delivered abroad—hence their opulence. They pay us now in lace, pomade, and soap, and the stupid Germans hand out money! In the evening we read some articles by Pohl about the music festival directed by Hans in Karlsruhe. Nice letter from my father, who says he is completely on our side; R., however, is annoyed by the thought that I might go to the performance of Christus in Weimar without him, and scolds me! .... (A conference regarding the tableaux vivants.)