Tuesday, November 8:
A good night, and sunshine until breakfast, then, however, an overcast sky. R. settles down to his score, page 1 of the third act, and he calls out to me, “I have made no mistakes.” We have lunch with the children in a cheerful and harmonious mood and then go for a walk in the Via Maqueda, looking at the shops. The air is very mild.
Yesterday, when we sat down at table, R. brought up the subject of compassion for animals, and remarked how long it took mankind to come to its senses; I observe that it is wonderful enough that it happened at all; R. feels it did so through mankind’s own suffering. And, talking of the many stars and suns he finds mentioned in Kant, R. says he feels the same way about it all as the French general about the Marne: “C’est une mauvaise plaisanterie.”
In the evening R. reads to us the second act of Henry VI, Part I, again making an indescribable impact, especially the scene involving the brawl with the roses. It is impossible to speak of anything else. When I say to R. that the play with the symbolic roses reminds one of Tristan und Isolde (the torch), he says, “Yes, it is musical,” and, “When one person speaks in Shakespeare, one must always pay attention to what the other replies” - foolishness to try to compare him with anyone else. And: “If a community were to be created, one would have to erect a pulpit, in order to learn from Shakespeare what history is.” He also feels that, because the Shakespeare histories include features from real life, they make a completely different impact from those in which he had only stories to work on - in these some traces of conventionality are still interspersed. And even where there is that Renaissance flavor he finds so repulsive, Nestor, Hector, it is full of life.