Tuesday, September 7:
With the words “This is scandalous!” R. wakes up, and since I hear him laughing repeatedly, I ask him what is the matter. He tells me that he was dreaming of a performance of Tannhäuser under Richter; the bass clarinet was missing, and in consequence the singers felt obliged to speak rather than sing; he had still hoped that at least the “Abendstern” would be sung, but no, and Richter did not seem at all disturbed.
At breakfast we come back to our conversation about the saints, and R. says, “We artists can only scratch the surface, particularly the painter, who has to express martyrdom with folds; the musician perhaps delves a little deeper!” R. is not dissatisfied with his state of health; on the contrary. For lunch we invite our friendly “spirit,” whose combined house and church are exactly what is now happening almost everywhere in Italy, that is to say, the monks set themselves up privately and gather together again.
In the afternoon R. and I go for a walk in the vineyards adjoining our Benedictine monks’ church. Delight in the countryside, which has the characteristics, R. says, that so enchanted him in Lombardy when he visited it from Switzerland. He is in good and cheerful spirits, and many memories from his childhood and youth come back to him, among them his brother Albert’s debut and how a Dr. Marcus, who was courting his sister Cäcilie, confided to him weepingly during a walk that he could not marry her, since he was a Jew and his practice depended on Jews.
In the evening our conversation turns to the army and its world; we tell the story of Schrenck, and R. observes, “In the army one might perhaps still find uniquely sturdy and proud characters, but they would peter out in such isolated cases.” When Jouk. mentions the Court, R. says he cannot think of a single one among all the princes who would be worth depicting. Altogether there is nobody in that sphere who could calmly consider the questions which occupy us.
He tells about his evening with Bismarck, which never went beyond the confines of parliamentary gossip. “There are only two people who seriously discuss serious questions, C. Frantz and I,” he adds, half in fun and half in earnest.
At my request we take up The Sorrows of Werther, and everything in it charms and moves us. Just the exclamation “Klopstock” tempts us to laugh heartily, but even the tears on the grave of the unknown man, which our friend Joukowsky finds somewhat superfluous, we are able to interpret to ourselves as an expression of a great and mildly melancholy awareness of the ways of the world.