Tuesday, July 8:
R. had a good night, and once again in our conversation we set the whole world to rights, as he says laughingly when we part. I do not know what led us to purely human factors; R. said Goethe had also tried, in Tasso, for example, to dissociate his characters from historical costume, whereas a similar sort of Venetian play by Hugo is stuffed full of historical local color. R. is inclined to agree with me when I compare Goethe’s Iphigenia with one of Canova’s Greek goddesses. He says the Greeks were fortunate in that their costumes corresponded so well to Nature, whereas in Shakespeare one really believes that men were born the way they appear, with their lordships, etc.
As we part, he invokes upon me the blessings of the god of kindness and truth, oh, may this blessing destroy the last spark of “mil” inside me! In the afternoon R. writes to Dr. Schron in Naples, and to the cigar merchant in Bremen, telling him that his godson could learn patience and perseverance from him. The acquittal of Cassagnac amuses R.; he says he knows his Parisians and how they hate the liberals, the gentlemen like Gambetta all portly, etc. Herr Gross sends us his draft of the announcement, in a form the management committee is willing to sign; R. rejects it, since on no account does he want to commit himself to the year 1881.
In the fear that he will now start tormenting himself with new drafts, I quickly write down a few lines; these he accepts and improves, and thus this tiresome intermezzo is disposed of. A new composition by my father in memory of Petofi tempts R. to play it. “He wrote that for pianists like me,” he laughs, “now, I too, am a Liszt pianist.” We are also amused by the work’s resemblance to Brünnhilde’s question, “War es so niedrig?” Then the 2nd act of Tristan, from the beginning up to the dream of love, properly sung by R. himself. An indescribable impression - what performance could ever convey the same effect, what singer ever achieve these accents? And then the work itself! If the King rouses men’s hearts to heroic deeds, Tristan gives us Nirvana, the nonexistence of anything besides love. How gloriously does universal emotion resolve into personal dialogue, and, as R. says, in all the bitterness there are still sparks of wit! But the impression is almost overwhelming. We talk about it, as well as one can after having such an impression, and then R. says with a laugh, “The Emperor exclaimed, ‘Wagner must have been very much in love at the time.’ ” From this quotation he goes on to describe an artist’s vision, how completely dissociated it is from personal experience, which only clouds it. He thinks that no artist ever describes what he is experiencing at the moment, not even Dante with Beatrice; he sees all the possibilities contained in it. Our parting today is a silent embrace.