Thursday, December 22:
It is now being said that Paris has enough provisions to last until April, and there is hardly any likelihood of a bombardment, since the range of the guns is too short. This is certainly bad news. R. says, “Now the Germans can show what they are made of; they have always distinguished themselves through patience and perseverance.”
Letter in Latin from Peter Cornelius, announcing the birth of his third child. Letter to me from Dr. Heigel, who has been asked to make a contribution to a book about the mothers of famous men and has chosen R.’s mother. I find journalism of this sort, which exploits everything, however private and intimate, quite horrifying; I shall tell Dr. H. that I am not willing to supply the required information. Richter brings along a violinist from Zurich, with whom our house quartets are to be arranged.
Yesterday R. spoke of our leaving Tribschen and then added, “Throughout my life there have been periods in which I was as good as dead and in which I sowed the seeds of a new life—thus Paris (after my jobs as music director), which led to my conducting engagement in Dresden, then Zurich following Dresden, and now Tribschen.” I mention the remark that flight has always been a distinctive feature of his life; flight from Riga, flight from Dresden, flight from Zurich, flight from Munich (twice). It is to be hoped this is now at an end.
When I tell him of my delight in the Venus scene in Tannhäuser (added in Paris), he says: “How conscious I was in Dresden of the inadequacy of this scene, how modestly did I doubt my ability to become one of the great—someone capable of doing what he wanted! I was just glad that I could put my whole soul into whatever I did do. But the reappearance of Venus I added afterward, and from it I later developed the whole Paris scene.”
Our conversation brings us to the large cities of France. “How dreary they are! Bordeaux, for example, is quite terrible, in spite of its magnificence; yet there I got to know a rector of the consistory; he gave a lecture on the Germanic character and maintained that the Saxon opposition to Charlemagne—that is to say, the Germanic versus the Latin—could be traced right up to Luther. I was absolutely Red in those days and I had a lively argument with this intelligent man, while Mme Laussot (who was not a bluestocking then!) listened in bliss.” R.’s autograph is discussed in the A.A. Zeitung, it is expected to be auctioned for a very high sum.