Wednesday, November 30:
R. tells his dream to his “dear miracle”: “I arrived with Minna in Constantinople and was so overwhelmed by the beauty of the place that I cried out that nobody could have any idea of such a thing without having seen it. Then I walked through strange alleyways, in which I imagined I recognized the places in which the Christians had concealed themselves in times of persecution. I passed all sorts of strange things—menageries, etc.—and suddenly noticed that I had lost Minna. I saw Rus approaching, and together we searched through a maze of streets, until I noticed that he had an injured leg. ‘Dear God!’ I exclaim, and tuck the huge, heavy beast under my arm. I arrive panting at an inn; there I inquire about a carriage and a boarding house. The landlady mentions one, Sporchelt and Hausschild, but as she is naming it she suddenly starts, having noticed a man listening as she gives me the address. ‘Aha,’ I think, ‘they are all rogues here,’ and I go away. The sight of the city again sends me into raptures, and during these raptures I must have fallen even deeper asleep, for, finding myself in a carriage driven by a Turkish coachman, I say, ‘They put you in this carriage when you were asleep.’ But Rus was missing. At last I find him beneath the seat of the carriage. But now I find my hat is missing, and I see it rolling down the hill behind me—somewhat like a dog following me; my coachman will not stop, and in my excitement I wake up.”
We laugh over the vividness with which in his dream he saw the Bosporus, the Golden Horn (which was, however, mountainous), etc.—all of which he has never set eyes on in real life! — Fidi the Olympian, that is what R. calls him, saying he will turn into something tremendous and cause us a lot of bother! — Nothing but dismal happenings to match the dismal weather. The news that Grane is ill, then Jews and travelers in wine; we are not well. (A nonpolitical letter from Schuré, on whom my statement that nothing throws a clearer light on Germany’s pitiful fate than the defection of Alsace, compared with the loyalty which binds Poles, Hungarians, Irishmen to their race, seems to have made some impression.) In the evening, Ranke. (Victorious engagement against the bulk of the Loire army.)