Monday, September 16:
R. slept well. We once again discuss his article “The Artist and the Public,” and he says, “Yes, I could not have written it quite like that in Paris at that time, I felt it all, was no longer to be moved, but could express it only fleetingly; so one sees how the writer, when he is in the midst of things, produces nothing worth while, the dramatist only when he looks at his subject from afar.”
He spoke of the singers in Paris who had talent, referring to Don Giovanni; even his brother Albert could have learned something from them, but not the present-day singers. When Malwida remarks that one constantly returns to the school, to the need to train singers, he says, “It’s not the training but the finding that would be difficult.”
Concern that his Parsifal is getting involved in the deficit arrangements: “If I were 20 years younger, I should do it only with singers I had trained for the task, and only in front of an audience which had made this possible.” But he works nevertheless! Arrival of our friend Standhartner; very dear and precious to us. The present position to which rashness has brought Austria is discussed in sorrow.
In the afternoon, as I am writing to friend Glasenapp, who has sent me photographs of the houses in Riga and Magdeburg, I hear R. talking in great excitement down below in the garden; I look out and see an unknown figure; shortly afterward R. comes up and tells me that a Protestant parson with a traveling bag had spoken to him, asking when he might talk with him; R., having first looked him in the face and remarked that he did not care to be accosted in this way, invited him to walk with him. First of all the man asked him to defend the interests of the church, then he asked him not to write anything else offensive to morality. “What do you mean?” “Well, the mermaids, for instance.” R.: “You are a very silly man; according to that, trees, birds, and the whole of nature would be immoral.” He: “You listen only to flatterers, you do not want to hear the truth.” R. is good enough to give him a copy of Parsifal: “In this you will see that I am more Christian than you are.” He: “That we shall know when we stand at God’s right hand.” R.: “Or at the Devil’s left,” and with these words he dismissed the importunate man. As R. says, he feels annoyed with himself, rather than with the man, for not having simply sent him away.
In the evening conversation with our friend, memories of Cornelius; R. can never forget how Cornelius once said to him, as if it were something quite natural, that R. always dropped his friends, whereas R. observes sadly that it was always they who gave him up when he expected more from them than they were able to achieve; thus it was with Herwegh, with Baumgartner, with Cornelius, Weissheimer, Ritter, etc. Friend Standhartner tells us about the policemen in Gastein who surround the German Emperor in masses, and if somebody has a hand in his pocket when the Emperor or Bismarck passes by, he is politely requested to take it out! Of the present dismal political events R. says sadly, “Oh, one must just leave off worrying about them.” Then he plays bits of Parsifal, the Prelude and part of the Flower Maidens.