Sunday, December 15:
"Poor old dear, dear Odysseus . . . Odysseus, adieu!" Thus I hear R. speaking in compassionate tones during the night; at the time he cannot remember why, and in the morning, when I tell him about it again, he says, "Yes, that was really a very pleasant encounter." We recall that yesterday at lunch he mentioned Laertes and said, "A very odd fellow, letting the suitors ruin his kingdom and not bothering his head about anything!" He had been reminded of Laertes by our gardener, Rausch. We had also talked about my reading the Odyssey to the children, and the dream could have arisen out of that. In the night, when I told R. about it, he said, "At any rate better than dreaming of a woman I loved more than you!" In the morning he cannot remember this, either.
We talk about the book Odysseus, the God of Spring, which vexed me at first, since it seems to destroy the personal relationships, but is nevertheless very good; Elpenor and all the women, Calypso, Circe - "there is something solicitous, withdrawn about them," says R., "and Laertes is the embodiment of winter."
(Another curious thing during the night: when I tell him about his dream and he answers me, still half asleep, he also says in an undertone, as if to himself, "Oh, these philologists, when they approach the problem of Homer, so uncertain of themselves, splitting hairs - wretched fellows.")
In the morning he works on his article, and says that he wrote about the King today, very noble. Yesterday he observed, "I have not mentioned you, though in the interests of truth I really should." He says he has featured Mimi very prominently. Yesterday evening he came to the subject of Auber and said he was glad that in his article he had presented him as such a significant figure, particularly with regard to La Muette - Spontini was a bungler by comparison. What that had really been was a sigh of relief from the people, once the Napoleonic oppression was lifted, but a sigh that led to nothing. "A heartless fellow, Auber, but a genius." Then about the laboriousness of all revolutions.
When I tell him that I have finished Turgenev's book, he discusses it with me in detail and says (regarding Sipniagin), "I realized from this book that the Russian aristocrats did at least go to the trouble of giving themselves certain airs; here they don't even do that - they're just vulgar." Yesterday he spoke very disgustedly about the Grand Duchess of Baden - not that she is vulgar, but that she is one of those treacherous people who appear to take an interest in something but do nothing to prove it: "A block off the old chip," he concludes with a laugh.
Heavy snowfall, delight in it. R. says, "It's like an ornament, like lace; with rain it's just needles." He does go for a walk in the afternoon, and to Angermann's, but he again feels tightness in his chest and has no desire to eat. The Rheingold, sent by Herr Albert, did not agree with him. "I feel like dying," he says to the children, and when a shadow passes across my face, he says with a laugh: "That's just to frighten them, so they'll be good. That's what I always did with the Mrazecks - I threatened them with my death. Then they left me in peace." It was not the joke, but the fact that he was unwell that troubled me.
In the evening friend Wolz., Josef R., and Herr Kellermann. R. talked about his overture in C major, in 4/4 time, which he regrets having lost; he says it was not all that bad, and it contained the Holst. chord (interrupted cadence). Herr Kellermann plays a polonaise by my father, which R. finds very good: "It is quite worthy of the Chopin ones." J. R. first of all plays organ fugues by Bach (A minor, C minor), very well - "a little overdramatized," says R., but he enjoys them greatly - then a Prelude in F-sharp Minor (No. 13) from the 48 Preludes and Fugues; since this reminds us of Die Meistersinger ("continuation of Bach"), R. takes out the collection of pieces from Die Meistersinger, and with these brings the evening to a splendid close. But he says, "This work was more or less cast to the swine; it brought me nothing." I feel that with all such works it is as with Hamlet; recently R. and I laughed at the way people (in this case Turgenev) talk of a Hamlet-like character, a Russian Hamlet, as if this figure had been real, not something created by a poet; and so will it be with his Sachs and his Siegfried; they will be regarded as real people and for that very reason will not be judged aesthetically. To end the evening he reads to us his Retrospect, or, rather, the first pages of it, so simple in its truth, so true in its simplicity. If only his health were better! ...