Monday, October 7:
R. slept well; our conversation leads him to his feelings of shame vis-à-vis C. Frantz and Schuré, both of whom saw, the one through knowledge, the other by instinct, what would become of the German Reich under Prussian leadership; but he shows no bitterness, and he wishes me “a blessed day, nice things to do and thoughts of me” in a tone of voice which is a blessing in itself!
He seems to be working on his article, for I hear no music. Yesterday he told us how curiously his themes were linked with certain places for example, with “der Glaube lebt, die Taube schwebt” he always saw the palace gardens and their surroundings. A letter from Dr. Jauner explains something of the situation in Vienna.
In the afternoon R. takes a long walk in the direction of the theater, he returns looking well and goes to his work (Parsifal); unfortunately he is interrupted by supper, which he has now fixed for 7 o’clock, and he is quite vexed; I, too, am very concerned, for such things can be avoided. But gradually he recovers, and goes through passages in the early Beethoven sonatas with Herr Kellermann; astonishment over his ignorance and incapability; great compassion for the poor man, whom the world seems already to have broken. After he has left the room, R. goes out into the garden and watches him, unperceived, through the window: he is writing a letter, stops, wipes his brow, sadly shakes his head. R. is moved and goes in to him. “I am not good enough for you, maestro,” the poor man says. “You are not good enough for yourself, my friend, forget all the runs and leaps, take out one piano score after another and get to know them all.”
R. tells us this touching story illustrating his kindness and an unkind fate. “Your father’s personality has caused a lot of trouble: these young people want to imitate something that cannot be imitated, and because of it they miss all the music.” Malwida brings us the news that the splendid convent of San Onofrio is available for renting: “But sans oven,” says R. with a laugh, “I’m not going there!” Then, more seriously, he says that Rome does not attract him, nor do its people, who look “so sinister and treacherous” and remind him of certain people in Bohemia.
After the Beethoven sonatas Herr K., to make up for it, as it were, plays one of the Soirées de Vienne, very pretty. R. pantomimes to it, imagining the couples who might be dancing to it, Hohenlohe and wife, the Donhoffs, Standhartners, Richters, Jauners, it made us laugh a lot. “Where does your father get it from? I also had my Soirées de Zurich.”
When the three of us are alone, he takes up Othello and reads aloud the scene with Iago, “Ha, I like not that,” with shattering effect. “Yes,” says R., “and what gave him that idea? He had read the mandate, and now he can see it in no other way but that. There one sees how stupid it is to assume that a writer creates out of his own life one cannot describe a passion in which one is or has been involved.”