Monday, November 21:
[Enclosed in the Diaries a piece of paper on which is written in Greek letters, in Wagner's handwriting: “Fidi is a donkey.” Beneath this Cosima has noted: “Written in Fidi’s room by R.”]
Our first conversation is now almost invariably about Shakespeare, and today, when I remark on the mild reproaches Henry VI makes to Salisbury, R. says, “That is because Shakespeare sees everyone he makes speak; he sees everything.” From Rome we receive an extract from Renan’s Marc Aurèle; I find this figure moving, but R. finds in him a certain lack of self-control unseemly in an emperor.
In the morning R. begins a letter to the King. In the afternoon we drive to the Villa Tasca, which is charming and pleases R. greatly. He is also pleased by the sight of the sea, quite rosy in color, and, when we arrive home, he calls me to show me the view he has from his couch, the splendid palm tree in the garden opposite, and I am happy to see him taking cheerful note of it. He continues writing his letter, and in the evening we read the 2nd act and the beginning of the 3rd act of Henry VI. In the face of that, silence. When I jokingly remarked at lunch that things had been easier for Aeschylus with his few characters, R. says, “That is the difference between myth and history,” and, after a moment of silence, “One thing Shakespeare always shows us, the terrible state of the world. In that sense one could regard him as the greatest pessimist of all.”