Tuesday, November 30:
R. did not have a very good night.
In the morning he talks to me about the present debate on the Jewish question, saying that the government has been pushed into a curious corner, for if it were to come out in support of the Jews, it would be identifying itself entirely with the Progressive party, with which, however, it wants nothing to do. He then goes on to discuss the present state of the stock exchange, saying that the power of the Jews could be dealt with only if all that ceased to be. He thinks it a great stroke of genius on Goethe’s part to have set the ball rolling in the Emperor’s Court with paper money.
Now nothing can be done, R. says, but he himself would ban Jewish holidays, on which they will not sell merchandise to Christians, and also the boastful synagogues. “What then will be the significance of our feast days?” R. works, then goes out for a little while, but without any pleasure; indeed, the dampness makes him feel as if he were at the mercy of those hostile beings who are sometimes revealed to him in dreams.
However, since I wish to do some shopping in the afternoon, he goes out again with me, I abandon my shopping, and we stroll in the palace gardens, very merry, though it is a rather macabre kind of humor. “Yes,” he exclaims, gazing at the parade ground, “arm yourselves with cannons, so that this lovely land shall not be occupied, so that the French shall on no account take Bayreuth!” In a climate like this, he observes, the only possible life is in taverns by lamplight, though, to be sure, it spells ruin for everybody.
The Philistine figures passing by, the old maids, annoy him, but when we speak of them we remain merry, impossible for him, he says, if he sees them when he is alone. He works in the evening, but says he had to do a lot of erasing. His best-written score, he adds, was Lohengrin.
In the evening read the letters to Uhlig, still with great interest. Even at that time he was finished with everything, all things vain and worldly. We talk of Fidi’s publishing these letters after our death, also those to his wife Minna, to A[lwine] Frommann, to my father. But our own, those between R. and me, must never on any account be presented to the public. I solemnly pronounce this here as their sacred duty.
Shortly before going to bed R. and I discuss the future of the Blätter, with some misgivings. It is only the views of people of genius which can prove absorbing.