Saturday, August 12:
R. talks in a high, thin voice; I ask with whom. Reply: “With Fidi, he must learn to respect me, must take me for an old woman!” The King is visiting the Emperor after all.
I visit Countess Ugarte, whom I like very much. R. still on his articles, which I have now finished. The balmy air does not agree with him; he says it is like a bad book.
We talk in the evening about Italian singers, to whom Rossini in effect owes his reputation, and when I wonder why there are no longer any of them about, he says: “Well, they are now all playing politics and waging war. Cavour, Garibaldi, the latter ought certainly to have sung the High Priest in Norma.” Nice letter from Prof. Nietzsche. I write to Claire.