Friday, December 19:
Visit from our friend Gersdorff, returning home from Italy via Basel; I enjoy the presence of this excellent man, who is utterly lacking in vanity, always open, truthful, and serious. R., too, thinks a great deal of him. He spends the whole day with us.
In the evening R. reads out passages from Henry IV, since these eternal things always affect one like springtime, the flowers, the sunny blue sky, as if one had never enjoyed them before. R. remarks on the rare dignity and loftiness of Shakespeare’s kings, then on the way in which he suddenly describes a subsidiary scene, such as that between Hotspur and his wife, in loving detail, as if it were the main theme. As far as Prince Hal is concerned, the aim was to portray him as a noble figure, but since Sh. is always truthful, he turns out unsympathetic.
At the conclusion of the evening R. plays passages from Wilhelm Tell (first act); we enjoy its expansive atmosphere, in comparison with which the refined and witty Auber seems very threadbare, but the remaining acts are terribly boring.
At breakfast a volume of poems by Frau Wesendonck brings R. and me to the subject of women’s emancipation. It is hard to form a fair judgment in this matter; since the position of women is such that they are very often obliged to support their families and to work like men, one cannot blame them for also demanding the rights of men. But one thing I cannot understand: that a woman should voluntarily seek a public position, for her own enjoyment. Her experiences in life must, I feel, tend to make her more retiring and bring her back to her work.
He wishes to complete the instrumentation of the first act by Christmas. In spite of much indisposition, vexation, worry, and exhausting work, he remains, thank goodness, in gay spirits and is utterly good and kind. “With your picture, the bust,” he says, “I worship idols while I am orchestrating - if you only knew all the things I say to you!”
Yesterday he went to fetch his decoration; today he is congratulated on it. The president, very courteous but a very dry official, did not make a graceful ceremony out of it.
In the evening he reads us Calderon’s El medico de su honra; though I place our German dramatists, not to mention Shakespeare, very much higher, and feel emotionally much closer to them, I must nevertheless admire this fanciful artist, whom I might almost call a virtuoso of life’s misery. Don Enrico’s passionate nature, Donna Mencia, fearful as a beast being led to the slaughter, Guttiere with his subtle earnestness, Don Pedro and his humorous brand of popular justice - besides these the artistic and lively action, the King’s forebodings of death leading to Enrico’s removal, and the songs to him which his brother is obliged to listen to in the street - all this is highly effective. One has the feeling of being in tropical climes, but it is alien, alien; one is captivated, powerfully fascinated, but one is not moved - oh, Desdemona, Juliet, Gretchen, Klarchen, Thekla - what very different characters! In the Germans, Nature is in conflict with itself and with life; in the Spaniard, it is Man with his conventions, the barriers he has himself created. But the artist in Calderon is always worthy of admiration.