Wednesday, September 3:
R. brings me his extrait centuple [“essence reduced a hundredfold”] - “pour charmer les maris” [“to charm your husbands”]! He did not sleep very well and had to get up once. At breakfast a letter from Herr Levi, which we open with some eagerness to hear about father and daughter, brings us the extraordinary news that during a discussion of his Christus my father flew into a rage with the poor man, who could think of no other way to extricate himself than to take his departure!
Long discussion, frequently resumed during the course of the day, of this curious incident, reflections on the character and life of my father. Dismal conversations!
Yesterday morning we were occupied with Shakespeare! R. recalled the murder scene in Richard III, which had seemed to him so long in London, whereas in his memory it had been short. He continued by saying that every one of Shakespeare’s characters contains material enough for a sustained role, though circumstances do not permit it, but each one is interesting, each person an individual.
Splendid weather; walked in the garden. In the evening whist with Boni. R. thinks Herr Haug must be crazy! The prospects for the wine harvest seem favorable, but the grain harvest is said not to have turned out well, so that there will be a great need for products from abroad. “What taxes we shall have!” R. exclaims with a sigh. He complains of his left eye, which is watering, and his left ear, which is dull of hearing. He resolves to make no more complaints, but I thank him for doing so, for otherwise I should die of worry.
Thursday, September 4:
R. again did not have a good night, though he dreamed of a very beautiful district full of flowers; the result perhaps of a letter from Mme Gautier, who invites us to Dinard. Our breakfast hour is again splendid. R. talks about Beethoven’s conciseness and says, “One comes to admire it more and more.” Mozart, he says, poured into an existing mold ideas which did not necessarily break the mold, but with Beethoven, the formal precision he preserves is something tremendous.
He works in the morning after reading Haug’s Old Testament, which he is almost inclined to give up on, for it is too crazy.
Walked in the garden with R.; in the evening Mozart’s Requiem, which R. loves greatly, particularly the Benedictus and the Recordare; comparison between this melodic charm and the charm of Raphael’s Madonnas; much about the Sistine Madonna, thoughts of R.’s next work about religion in relation to art; the beauty of Raphael free of desire; I compare Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin, on the other hand, with Isolde’s transfiguration. Completely immersed in these discussions, we seal them with an embrace.