Tuesday, November 27:
R. slept well again. Much excitement about the conductor’s baton, which R. gave me a long time ago and which was stolen from the house during my journey to Italy; unceasing investigations now give a glimmer of hope that it will be found. The police here are like those in Much Ado About Nothing.
In my merry mood I yesterday wrote much nonsense to Marie von Dönhoff, who had written to me again after a long silence. R. says at lunch that he once again dreamed that during an emergency he had to sing in Tannhäuser. We talk about dreams, etc., and when Frau v. Wolzogen remarks that one cannot control one’s dreams, I say I have the feeling that deep inside myself there is a power which rules over everything and can avert disaster, whether dreamed or real, but this power either is lying fallow or, more likely, does not choose to exert itself.
R. says that Goethe expressed this feeling so beautifully, and in the Pythian way befitting a poet, in his lines: “The God above my powers enthroned.” Frau Lucca’s Italian menu card brings us on to the subject of the Italians, and R. tells us what he once replied when Sgambati spoke of the dolce far niente of Italian music: “With German musicians, on the other hand, it is a case of laboriously saying nothing - penible dir niente.” Letter from Herr Tappert: he thinks he has discovered R.’s symphony! And he has a lot of other interesting things to say. Much, much joy over this!
In the evening, two acts of Henry VI. Gloster’s departure and return after the vilifications of the lords strikes R. as one of the most remarkable features in Shakespeare.