Monday, September 26:
Very bad weather, cold and raw, and Fidi ill. Obstacles everywhere, as R. says. I write to Marie M. and arrange a meeting with her in Bayreuth. God knows what will come of it, we go into it without much faith. News of an engagement in L’Isle de Dame which is still going on! Utter anarchy, how and when will it end?
R. is horrified with Die Wacht am Rhein; the Illustrirte Zeitung prints it as a supplement. “I hope the French win,” he cries. “It is too pitiful!” If a witty Frenchman were to see that, he says, he would regard our German fatherland with a mild, ironical smile for going into battle with such a melody. R. is moved to tears by this prospect. “We have sunk too low. Only our troops will rescue us, they are great, and Bismarck.” With a smile he adds, “He won’t sing the ‘Wacht am Rhein’!”
I do not know what brings me to speak of Sappho, but R. tells me that I will never be able to understand these poems, and from there goes on to speak of the impossibility of our ever even envisaging the Greek world—Christianity has made of us something completely different, and between these worlds lies a chasm, an unbridgeable one.
“We will try once more with the German fatherland, with Bayreuth; if it doesn’t succeed, then farewell the North and art and cold, we shall move to Italy and forget everything.” In the evening R. begins Der Magnetiseur, which made a big impression on him when he was a child. I soon ask him to stop, however, since the subject and the treatment of it displease me greatly. The previous evening Don Juan had given me such enjoyment; Donna Anna and her death reminded me of Tristan and Schnorr. And how keenly Hoffmann feels the triviality of the so-called public vis-à-vis a great artistic figure!