Saturday, December 3:
R. was up for an hour during the night and read the Berlin Tage-Blatt; after that he slept well, and before breakfast he went for a walk in the English Gardens. He did not see our doorpost beggar; but yesterday he talked about this deplorable state of affairs and observed that one should do nothing but keep repeating to the people who praise Italian progress, “Your beggars.”
Then he comes to the subject of gaiety and seriousness and says: “Do you know why most people have no sense of humor? Because they are always pretending. A truthful person can let himself go and play around with things, the liar must always be thinking of himself. Gobineau, for instance, who cannot tell us his true reasons for not coming - he has to be very serious, whereas you, who see through it, can joke with him.” I tell him how much I am struck by this, since it is the theme of the letter I have just begun to Jouk., who has admitted to us his difficulties - on account of his sister. [A sentence of purely etymological interest omitted.]
He works. Around lunchtime we go for a walk in the garden, he shows me the orange tree beneath which, and the lawn on which, he wants to “roll” with Fidi. He is content here and is thinking of always spending six months of the year here, and to live in Germany for the sake of music, which is undoubtedly at home there; when darkness falls, the lamps are lit: “Now for the theater.” He recalls what lovely experiences we had last year in Munich. But this is where he wants to live. He says sadly how much he would like to share it with friends, but he has none. He has asked Count Tasca, who called on us yesterday, to recommend a villa to him.
Over coffee I read aloud a letter from Stein, who writes about the callousness of the socialists when one of their number was abducted. “Yes,” says R., “when there is no idea to inspire them.” He says they should be shown a great example and brought to see what selfless sacrifice means. With regard to that he keeps coming back to relationships with animals. He goes for a walk with the girls, by the sea and through the streets.
We chat in the evening; Siegfried tells us that he was stopped in the street, asked whether he were the son of R. W. When he said yes, the man (a photographer) said to the other one, “Tutto il tipo Wagneriano” [“completely the Wagnerian type”]. R. shows me the newspaper report about the King [not found], observing how strangely it coincides with their correspondence; he scents trouble, he says. Then he gets annoyed with the language in which the weather conditions are described. I read aloud the historical survey in Baedeker, and at the conclusion of the evening R. calls me onto the steps of the conservatory, shows me the moon, and delights in the splendid air.
I feel how dreary all this beauty would seem if we were separated. “We have experienced that,” R. says, “and, if we did not have the children with us, we could not take pleasure in it, either, even though we knew them to be happy and content at home.” In the afternoon, when he sees that I am coming to the end of Talleyrand’s correspondence, he tells me he does not intend to read it. All the same, he adds, it is interesting - it just depends on who is reading it.
He has a good night and rises early to work. If it had been prescribed for himself, he knows very well what he is doing, is vexed when he is treated as a delicate person to be cosseted by artificial means. Exactly the opposite. Over coffee he talks, half in jest and half in earnest, about the downfall of the human race, which one is always seeking to counter by erecting telegraph poles and building railroads. Then he said he would like to live in a district which has no beggars.
He is looking well, and he tells me over afternoon coffee that here it gives him tremendous pleasure to sit down at his writing desk. He is glad not to need a fire - and then the lovely plants. “How lovely it is,” he thinks to himself, “that you are able to write such a score, without sweat or anxiety, completely at ease.” He says everything here seems homely - quite different from Naples where there is so much excitement. Today he goes out by himself, I being prevented by a bad foot, and he returns after two hours, somewhat tired, it seems to me.
At lunch he tells me that he has given up The Theory of the Heavens, since he knows too little about the subject, and he is now starting on Kant’s book about the human races. And at the end of the meal he says he would like to make the acquaintance of a gifted young man, but not a woman - they always cause a disturbance. After his walk he goes to work, and he tells me he has been asking himself whether he should use a bass clarinet. I: “In which passage?” He: “In the baptism.” He adds that he has not yet got that far, but he is considering it: “The fellows must practice.”
At supper he recalls Switzerland, which gave him shelter twice: “Twice I have crossed Lake Constance with the feeling of leaving all that nonsense behind me.” Then he recalls the performances of the Beethoven symphonies in Zurich and feels that, as far as correctness is concerned, he has never achieved better ones, because he had sufficient time there. We recall the other splendid performances and old times in Tribschen. He gives von Bismarck’s speeches in the Reichstag to read. We are amazed by their tone, this constant “I.” At the conclusion of the evening we open the doors of the conservatory; mild air bathes us. He speaks to me of the beauty of S.’s eyes: “The lad is all eyes.” He also played something from Parsifal, expressing humorous vexation that nowadays it is always Tristan which is singled out. He then observes that, if our performance plans hold, he will hand the task over to Herr Neumann, so that the latter can earn some money for him and he can travel through Spain up the Nile, etc. Today he was sent a R. W. calendar from Vienna, with some mistakes in it.