Saturday, June 21:
R. had a good night, and he works happily on his article. It is a close day, but it clears up, and we are able to have our coffee in the summerhouse and enjoy an afternoon rest, both reading the currency debate! ... Would it not perhaps help if Bismarck were to call things by their right names?
Around 6 o’clock we take a walk to Birken and beyond through the fields; a glorious evening. The meadows are more gaily colored and lush than I think I have ever seen them, forget-me-nots, marigolds, daisies, and wood pinks rising above the rosy blades of grass, which in the sunshine cast a reddish-gold veil over the flowers; a celebration of rebirth. How is one to express one’s gratitude? A lark does it for us, trilling forth our thanks exultantly on high.
R. leads us along a narrow path through the middle of a field of grain, and our figures are like greetings from Heaven, the blue ether transformed into stars, the blue star of the deep. Where Friedrichstrasse ends, and the meadow begins, R. shows me a farmhouse dovecote which has taken his fancy, and then we return home along paths new to us, amid the scent of elder blossom. During the evening we think frequently of the meadow and the wheatfield, and we see our house too with redoubled pleasure. R. loves my picture, saying it contains “a noble reproach.”
In the evening there is discussion about opera texts. R. says that one would be unjust even to the worst opera composers if one did not read the text before listening to the opera. R. asks Herr Rubinst. for something by Bach, and he plays the C minor organ prelude and fugue; R. finds it beautiful, though toward the end rather fugal. We examine the portrait of Bach at the front of the French edition of the 48 Preludes and Fugues (Czerny), and R. says, “A typical musician’s face, like Mozart and Beethoven; they are men of feeling.” And when it is mentioned that there is some doubt whether Bach really lost his eyesight through copying by moonlight, R. says: “Why? When I think of my two years in Paris, all that penury - people might feel like doubting that too, for I was not a mere peasant lad, and at that very time my relations were living in a big house in Leipzig.” Talk of the fate of great men: Shakespeare, Cervantes, Beethoven. R. is somewhat tired.