Tuesday, June 18:
R. did not have a bad night, but it was also not completely undisturbed; however, he arranged an outing to Berneck. At breakfast he tells me briefly his thoughts for the 3rd “Public and Popularity” article: art is dished out by professors, distorted by academies, as religion is by the church.
In the morning he finishes Renan’s Life of Jesus and is in complete agreement with his interpretation, also with his description of the Roman Empire and the mediocrity to which we are now irretrievably devoted. We have lunch at 12 o’clock and at 1:30 drive to Berneck with the children and the Wolzogens, by way of Goldkronach. Much delight in the countryside; when, in Berneck, we pass by a narrow bridge, R. says it belongs in one of his most frightening dreams, a bridge like that and more and more people crowding onto it (last night he dreamed of a mass of people who forced their way into his room; though he did not know them, each one had individual features).
Merry supper in lovely sunshine in the Molkengarten opposite the ruins, after R. and I had gone for a long walk in the woods. On the beautiful homeward journey via Bindlach we see Bayreuth lying bathed in sunshine before us, dominated by the theater - “The lookout tower,” says R.
He recalls his impressions in 1835, how the coachman told him the town’s name, how the broad avenues had impressed him, and the whole town struck him as a place “where things were happening.” R., very content with the outing, makes me happy by looking so well. He draws our attention to a man standing upright on a hay wagon, contrasting boldly on the green heap against the blue sky; when he takes a staff in his hand, R. says, “Now the cart looks like a ship.” I think of The Artwork of the Future and R.’s dreams for the people.