Saturday, September 11:
Much merriment over his description of the scene between the two women in Tasso, both so wise, so good, all just vapor and hot air, “in which there is no place for a donkey like Tasso,” and all the time one knows how things really were. He praises Egmont, though he feels that such crowd scenes would have been unthinkable without Shakespeare. Shakespeare or the Nibelungen, Hans Sachs: those are the two directions.
He takes Tancred with him to read, in order at long last to acquaint himself with the subject, but the Fl. Blätter prevent him from getting down to it. He rules 12 pages. I go with the children to look at various things in town and have to put up with jokes from him about it.
In the afternoon we take a splendid walk, R., I, and the children, through the vineyards, and he is not tired by it, or by reading aloud; he finishes Egmont in the presence of the deeply affected children. Nobody could possibly describe his facial expression, the tone of his voice, the movement of his hands, as he speaks the final words. And everything in it delights us; he thinks it is almost the most perfect thing Goethe ever did. But he does say that on the stage Klärchen’s scene amid the people makes little effect; it is very tragic, but almost too vivid. He emphasizes its fine humanity, its complete lack of empty phrases. This time it all seems to me lovely, I am moved, even by Brackenburg. Only Ferdinand seems somewhat spun out, but R. feels Egmont had to have someone to talk to in prison.