Friday, November 29:
R. slept well; this was not so yesterday, he read Chopin for an hour, still quite amused by its extravagant style! I do not remember why our talk today led us to Mazzini, but R. says: "I never cared for him, even his name displeases me, and I have never heard anything but phrases from him: 'Dio e popolo' [‘For God and the people’]. I wonder what he would have done without N. III!"
He works, and at lunch looks well and cheerful. The sky is overcast: "What do I care for the sun outside? I have my sun inside," he exclaims to me, to my bliss. Over coffee he tells me about his work: "Sometimes it is just a few bars which hold one up terribly, till one can introduce the key one needs in such a way that it is not noticeable. For more and more I shy away from anything with a startling or blatant effect; then at least four or five possibilities occur to me before I find the one which makes the transition smoothly; I set traps for myself, commit all sorts of stupidities before I discover it."
I say it must be something like the way great painters such as Titian and Leonardo da Vinci chose colors to avoid crude contrasts. "Oh," he says, "painters are fortunate, they have so much time, but you are right, it is something like Titian's coloring I am seeking." Then he mentions Mozart and the aria played yesterday: "The poor fellow, with his broad nose and a mouth (so it's said) literally like a pig's snout, he had a real feeling for beauty! I'm only now learning to appreciate him fully. What aristocracy, what beauty there is in this aria! If only he had not added the ritornello! The allegro is already bad enough, though it just about passes - but that ending! It shows how everything in him was just instinct, not that he couldn't do it any other way."
R. goes out for a walk, then does some work. In the evening, before supper, he calls me to look at the "meadow," now laid out nicely in folds! Then a merry supper, which I unfortunately cannot describe exactly as it was, R. joking with the children, warming us all with his divine humor. Afterward we finish Disraeli's novel: we had expected more talent, it peters out in trivialities, and even its message is significant only because it is spoken by England's subsequent Premier. Friend W. tells us that the proposed reintroduction of the law against profiteers was just a mockery, and the government is keeping quiet about it. He relates that on the occasion of the Emperor's reception a minor state of emergency is to be declared. R. observes that the Emperor seems now to have become somewhat childish. I: "It would have been better if he had died in France." R.: "Such people never die in France!" He goes on to say that in connection with this French war he is reminded of Weber's experience in Prague, when no one cared to show any enthusiasm. Instead: "H.E. Field Marshal Schwarzenberg has with humble obedience won the battle for H.M. the Emperor"! So also in this case: if one showed one's respect and admiration for the officers, one appeared to be meddling in matters which did not concern one. Moltke, he says, is like a kind of engineer: if there is another war, he will be pleased. This last war was like an arithmetic problem correctly solved. "What is the use," R. exclaims sorrowfully, "when there is no principle involved to inspire people?" "Just how little popular feeling was concerned in it," I say, "we saw in what happened to the Kaisermarsch." [Added in margin: "That I, too, have had to lose my sympathy for the army!" R. said with sad composure.] "Oh, it is terrible," he exclaims sorrowfully. "What on earth can I say when I ask: 'Shall We Hope?' I shall only give offense everywhere." Friend W. tells us that in Herr Busch's book it is reported, with reference to the imperial crown, that the Emperor said, "With it Herr Lasker gave me a pleasant surprise." R. says, "That was his profound instinct speaking: it was the Jews who created the imperial crown."
These sad thoughts disappear, and we converse together, R. and I, more tranquilly. As the evening draws to an end he says, "That is what is so bad about your company - I no longer enjoy consorting with others." He then adds, in his merry way, "I used to enjoy consorting so much!" I laugh: "That is some comfort to me for the badness of my company." R., seriously: "My sole urge was always to throw off everything. When I left Zurich, for example, I felt, despite the loss of my peace, glad to have left it all behind me." ...