Saturday, April 8:
R. had a somewhat restless night, I compose in my mind a letter to Lusch, a copy of which I would send to Hans; but today R. is for "letting it go," and so let it be forgotten and-to the extent that I have the right to say it-forgiven! Then I write to the Tascas, before that to L. Lehmann, with all the warmth I am capable of expressing. Weather still gray and overcast. We receive Marquis San Giuliano and Prince Ramacca, Blandine's future father-in-law. R. very, very charming and kind. In the afternoon he reads to me an anecdote, which he finds touching, about a shepherd who, after getting tickets for himself and his dog, leaves his seat and goes to join his animal. Then he reads parts of The Classical Walpurgis Night to me; he much admires Erichtho's speech, but almost above all else the scene of Mephisto with the griffins and sphinxes, then Chiron-everything, in fact, in this most wonderful of conceptions. Talking about Goethe and whether he can be regarded as the sum total of the German spirit, R. says, "I think he can, if one considers how he absorbed all the revivals and discoveries of the 18th century in this free manner; and in the ultimate things he was always full of prescience." Speaking of Helen in Faust, whom he does not much care for, R. says he can see Goethe standing in Rome in front of the antiquities. In the evening whist, and Italian arias sung by R. Then some more talk between us about H.