Sunday, April 6:
Conversation in the morning about Charlotte von K. and Schiller. “In the life of a young man,” says R., “the value of a woman like that is incomparable.” Then he speaks about a performance of Nathan der Weise by several Israelites in honor of Lessing, and he tells me the theme for his final article for this year’s Bayreuther Blätter, which will be “A human being needs necessity.” He works and is satisfied with his work.
But he has several things to vex him, as always when he comes into contact with the outside world: the dogs have killed a cat, Brange is accused of spoiling the local hunting of hares, and appeals are made to R., both in person and in writing; to one man he says in reply, among other things, “I did not wish to do harm to the Bayreuth population by settling here.” On top of that, the gas is not burning well, and other such domestic troubles. All this irritates him, but he soon recovers, and after a short game of whist we read The Winter’s Tale, the unique shepherd’s scene! “What, art so near?” - the old shepherd’s question which shows all of Shakespeare’s immediacy, how he hears the raging of the storm, which prevents the old man’s hearing his son’s voice, and which accounts for his surprise - it is this immediacy which R. again singles out.