Monday, December 1:
R. had a night troubled by wild dreams. He dreamed once more that I went away, and to Siegfried, who forced his way in to him, he said, 'Go away! I don't like any of you now,' whereupon Siegfried, leaving him, collapsed; he lifted him up, finding him light as a feather, then he felt a hot breath on his mouth and chin, which was Brangäne licking him, and to her he said, 'You know Marke is dead!'
At breakfast we come back to yesterday's conversation about natural laws, and R. says he will once more tell Herr v. S. that they are of no benefit, no help at all for morals and ethics - 'and if on top of that their application is despised, nothing remains of it all but idle sport.' Today for the first time R. talks about our dying together!
At lunch he says that K. Ritter declares Die Braut von Messina to be Schiller's best play. When Herr v. Stein remarks that Die Räuber and Die Braut represent the two poles of Schiller's nature, R. says this is a sensible view, but the play which contains the most life is in fact Wallenstein.
Over coffee he talks of his youth and the 'horrible company' he kept, then mentions Pfau and describes his visit to the 1867 World Exposition in Paris, the children as they filed past him, the sister of mercy who on one single occasion took her eyes off her children to cast an almost stolen glance at something, saw him weeping at the sight, and gave him another look. In the children's faces he read precocious vice, and if now and then one of them looked good and sensible, this only made the impression even more lamentable. This and the butterflies had comprised his visit to the World Exposition!
And that is why he will not send Siegfried to an elementary school, he says. When we were talking about Naples and Malwida recently, he said her whole life was based in the final analysis on concessions and allowances; her character was not sinister enough to carry out what she had begun in a spirit of magnanimity. The monument in Geneva to the Duke of Brunswick, coupled with the King of Denmark's visit for the purpose of returning the Guelph fund, gives R. occasion to compare the wretchedness of a republic with the wretchedness of a monarchy.
[Enclosed a letter from Josephine Gallmeyer, presumably to Hans von Wolzogen, concerning her veneration of Wagner, and on it an addition in Cosima's hand: 'When I mention in her favor that the celebrated lady is poor, R. says, “She is passionate, so she must be poor.”']
Some music making in the evening, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, which R. follows in the score. Once again, in spite of all the interest in it, it arouses very disagreeable feelings. 'I wouldn't allow him in my state,' R. says and points out how monstrous he is, in spite of his talent, even in spite of a certain sense of melodic simplicity and inner feeling. The last movement caused actual pains in his chest, as if he had been singing, and he even looks worn out!
Pleasure at being left alone together at the end of the evening.
Before the music R. read to us some of Goethe's Zahme Xenien; his search in the afternoon for his favorite, Johannisfeuer, had led him to glance through these splendid pages. Goethe is this and Faust, he says, a tremendous genius flashes through these sayings, a Greek sense of freedom, and yet at the same time something thoroughly German.