Tuesday, January 22:
Around lunchtime R. calls me and says he has something to show me; he plays and sings to me the heavenly scene of the uncovering of the Grail. As tender and exalted as Salvation itself! The words “Wein und Brot des letzten Mahles” sound like an ancient saga told by angels.
“But I won’t let the old man appear again,” R. says; “he would remind me too much of that old gondolier in Venice who always butted in when others were singing.”
Stormy weather, no sun, but no cold, either. In the evening finished the history of the Arabs. Then the Falstaff scenes in Henry IV Part I. R. says the scene with the carriers and Gadshill is one of those he admires most of all. “That is real closeness to Nature, for the life of the common people is Nature.”
A man sends us a paper about the Nibelungs; R. says, “I’ve only got to hear the syllable Hi now to take to my heels.”