Monday, December 5:
R. slept well, has a cold sponge bath, and comes to breakfast in good spirits after having greeted the children through closed doors, as he frequently does here, with Mendelssohn’s music to “Pyramus and Thisbe.” When I tell him I do not really care for it, he says: “Oh, it’s wretched stuff! The trumpets for Peaseblossom are witty, but none of this A Midsummer Night’s Dream music has ever appealed to me. Still, all the theater managers vied with one another to present this masterpiece; Eduard Devrient - he was exactly that sort of cold, perfidious Mendelssohn admirer.” (These are not his exact words, but what he meant.)
We talk merrily about the celebrations of the 100th concert in Bayreuth, and the speech in connection with it which we read yesterday in the B. “Tagblatt.” That is so typical of these people, R. says, their self-satisfaction - and the final chorus always proclaims that nothing more need be said to the world! We think of Schopenhauer and of what a respectable life he led; R. says his concern over the dissemination of his works was due to their nearly having been pulped. “Just think of Tristan,” he says, “if printing had not been invented, how soon it would have vanished forever!”
He recalls that Hans told him of his visit to Schop. and the question the philosopher put to him: “Did you notice how the dog looked at you?” “And it is true,” says R. “Nothing else is quite like the intensive look with which a dog examines a newcomer.” The morning is fine, and at lunch R. relates that he has been working.
“Oh, music!” he exclaims. “Here one will be able to see for the first time what potentialities it contains for conveying sorrow in bliss! That is something in the Adagio of the 9th Symphony which I do not like, that rousing of oneself for a sort of triumphal song, a self-mastery which is quite unnecessary, since it is already there eo ipso in the music.” Lunch is somewhat overshadowed by Loldi’s melancholy, arising from a reproof I was obliged to give her during the history lesson, and R. cannot bear to see the children sad. The skies are gray, too.
We go for a short walk by the sea, in spite of the rain, and then home via the Politeama; R. chides a boy who is maltreating his dog, and since he can make little impression on him in Italian, he resolves to learn the language. In the evening I read to myself the speeches and replies in the Reichstag; the parties are now all split up. “Socialism,” says R., “is the only thing left with any strength, for at least everyone is still talking about it.”
In the evening I read aloud the passages in [Goethe’s] Italian Journey; R. is bored by the description of the sea crossing, I skip a lot and come to the capers of Prince Pallagonia; R. remarks that Goethe used to enjoy staying with such old fogeys. Regarding the Reichstag, he says: “Why doesn’t somebody get up and speak a sensible word, say to Bismarck, ‘It was a point about which you are now complaining’? Instead of that, every one just worries that he might resign.” (Letter from Lusch, R. thinks the life she is leading is a trivial one.)
The girls tell us they saw a crowd outside the cathedral (at the side), they go to see what it is and discover their brother drawing, surrounded by inquisitive people who have come from all corners to watch him. [Added in margin: “He completes a letter to Wolz. for the January Blätter.”]