Tuesday, January 23:
R. slept well and has decided to have a massage only once a day. At breakfast we chat quietly together, and I make a firm resolve to tell him as little as I possibly can, in order not to thwart or overburden the cherished workings of his mind. He does a little work, and at 12:30 we ride to the Piazzetta in glorious weather, walk almost as far as the arsenal, sit down for a while in the Giardinetto, and return at 3 o'clock.
On the trip out R. mentioned Bach's fugues — "In these, chaos is turned into harmony" — he finds all other forms trivial in comparison, and yesterday he expressed his regret that music is so much the slave of its time, except perhaps only in its use of drama. On the homeward journey I sing the first movement of the C Minor Symphony, which amuses R. Our lunch is cheerful, and our receiving two calls (from Count Bardi and Princess Hatzfeldt) does not displease R. He continues reading Gob.'s book, increasingly astonished by the author's studies.
Chat in the evening, brought to an end by R. with the "Shepherd's Song" and "Pilgrims' Chorus" from Tannhäuser. He says he still owes the world Tannhäuser. Yesterday, recalling Blandine's wedding, we discussed what a catastrophe it is in these days to be born a Catholic, and R. argues that the tendency of this church is to condemn intelligence and a feeling for beauty and to rely on the common people, at the same time keeping them in a state of ignorance.
During our walk today he told me about an elephant in Siam which went wild with rage, whereupon first its eyes were torn out and then it was left to starve. "Humans are the stupidest animals of all," he continues sorrowfully. I take Spontini's remark and apply it to Nature, saying that it really does appear to have done more than it can do, whereupon R. says, "Until the appearance of the Saviour on the cross." I observe, "As recompense for all the disasters." He: "In the urge to put an end to the whole of Nature's will to live."