Sunday, April 23:
R. has remembered a Verdi theme which he heard sung yesterday on the Grand Canal as a duet; he sings it to me, laughing at the way this outburst of rage was bellowed out yesterday; he made a note of its broken rhythm - “And that one is asked to call a natural line!” - there is nothing like it in Rossini. He reads the Blätter in the morning and feels that Stein’s “Luther and the Peasants” is rather sketchy and bombastic.
Then he goes out, once again intent on finding presents for the children. He tells me humorously that in Giarre, the village we gave up in favor of Riposto, a lawyer from Palermo was taken prisoner and released only against a payment of 75,000 lire - now they are about to clean up Etna. R. asks what priests are for; they are supposed to represent Christianity. Judas has triumphed, he says sorrowfully, and he speaks of Christianity, the relation of man to man - this will be his last work, he says. He reproaches Gob. for leaving out of account one thing which was given to mankind - a Saviour, who suffered for them and allowed himself to be crucified.
Over coffee we come to G[oethe]’s last letter to Frau von Stein, with Chr[istiane] Vulpius in it, and R. observes that Christiane’s amiable disposition was a blessing for G. after all the “lovesicknesses,” and as he was becoming increasingly serious, he surely wished to get rid of these excitements “with nothing behind them”; we talk about the moral courage required for the curious relationship with Christiane in that little town; R. asks how Schiller described her and then, going on to talk of Schiller’s wife, he says earnestly and exaltedly, “I have fared better.” My heart overflows at the thought that I have been permitted to share his life!
At 4 o’clock we go for a drive, wish to visit the Giardino Pubblico and hear something from Lohengrin, lose our way, however, and go on to the arsenal, a photograph of which attracted R. One of the ancient lions enchants him: “An ideal creature such as I have never seen before; that’s how my Fafner and Fasolt should look.” And back at home, reading Baedeker, he exclaims, “That lion is my Wotan!” He is staunchly and firmly convinced that it once stood in Marathon as a triumphal monument; it is symbolic, he says, and is pleased that he felt so drawn to it, even in the photograph. As we are returning home, a glorious sunset illumines the buildings opposite. Fidi asks regretfully why the monasteries were dissolved. R. replies to him earnestly, telling him what a pitiless power these magnificent buildings served, what symbols of arrogance they had become, though built for a completely different purpose. It is true, he continues, that the power which is attempting to take their place is not promoting the cause of sublimity, either, and so the situation is serious, and we are probably experiencing the last days of a pleasant illusion. “But we should strive to preserve, to see history as a great teacher, and not to begin again from the beginning, tearing everything down,” he says, having been much moved in S. Marco by the thought of how much work had been done on this noble building over many centuries.
As he speaks, the lovely bells of Venice toll solemnly, the shadows lengthen, and the sun sinks down, gilding the other side. “You have one advantage over others - you keep me company,” R. said to me before this; I scold him for expressing what I only tell myself. “But what I think about it - that you don’t know,” he replies. Once again I am struck by the way he expresses what I so fervently feel inside me, as also at times much more trivial matters. For instance, I had been thinking for a moment of Der Dorfbarbier [The Village Barber] for his birthday, and he says, “I must find some village barber for Fidi.” (Fidi had been unwilling to let Schnappauf cut his hair.)
In the evening R. reads Signor Formica aloud, to the enjoyment of us all.