Thursday, November 10:
R. slept peacefully. A stormy morning prevents our having breakfast in the conservatory; instead we eat in the salon, his workroom. He is pleased with its furnishings, even the worn rugs and cushions: “I like friendly things,” he exclaims, and when I remark that, even if they are old, they still look pretty, he says, “Yes, when the color fades, the ideality of the feeling still remains - when Makart vanishes, Lenbach remains.”
We come back to Lassalle and his assertion that with such a press even the Greeks would have become stupid. “Except that they would never have produced it,” R. remarks. “That is what I always say - what sort of people are we, to let such things happen?” When I remark that it seems to me that the Germans were never made to form a state, which always contains an element of sterility, he says, “Yes, it is an Assyrian-Semitic idea; we Germans were made to form small, industrious communities like the Boers; the French, on the other hand, for monarchy.”
The fact that Bismarck is speaking against the anti-Semitic movement and the rumor that Parson Stoecker is to be removed from office make R. think that, having realized that it failed to get recognized in the elections, the Reich Chancellor is now abandoning the movement and making a pact with the Jews! R. observes that one ought to leave the Reich, so as to keep it from causing one too much grief. R. works and shows me the completed page of his score. We do not go out but are able to stroll on the terrace, where, among other things, R. is much amused by the monkeys; he goes to give one of them a tap, but it anticipates him and hits R.
In the evening delight in Siegfried, who is again drawing ceaselessly here. And the third act of Henry VI, in which we are moved above all by Exeter’s soliloquy. Otherwise R. does not much care for the scenes in France. And continually Weber.