Friday, October 20:
R. had a good night, though he got up once. He is now reading Count Robert of Paris and enjoying it. At around 12:30 we meet in Saint Mark’s Square, I with Siegfried, he alone, and I notice at once that he is irritable and feeling ill at ease. Our lunch goes off quite well, though he soon withdraws, and at about 4:30 we go out with Eva, again to St. M.’s Square, where we meet the rest of the family.
Since R. is feeling run down, we sit under the archway of the Doge’s Palace and talk about W. Scott, whom he greatly esteems, even though he admits that one never exactly warms to his characters, and that Carlyle was right when he said they act their characters and do not live them. R. says, “He is the theater director who sets it all in motion; he himself is always interesting, but his characters much less so.” He also remarks once again that the language is what always catches his attention, and it disturbs him to see Vareger using the word “meta physics.” He adds that this has to do with what a mixture the English language is, in which “metaphysics” is just a word like any other. He bursts out with amusement that W. Scott always has some Scotsman or Anglo-Saxon present - rather like W[ilhelm] Meister.
We then walk back and forth along the garden and the palace, and R. is very pleased to be here; we go to Lavena’s and meet our friends the Schl.’s, with whom we stroll about a little. In lovely moonlight we ride home, magically breathed upon by the buildings of the Gr. Canal. And in the evening we chat together. R. plays several of Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte, which truly astonish us with their poverty of invention and their Italianisms. Then he talks of Mozart, compares him to the Italians, can understand why Schop. preferred the latter, since Mozart’s flight was toward completely different regions, as various things show (the Donna’s recitative and the entrance of the Commendatore), and he was held back by a wretched tradition. Before this he asked Herr Hausburg some questions about Siegfried’s musical education.