Tues. 2. [2 May 1893] After breakfast came Maurice and we went to
the Batsch - dear charming women who said they would be glad to
have me. Frl Sophie came sight seeing with us. We went first to see
the Liszt house, very interesting the big room just as he left it with 2
pianos and his writing table with a sheet of music on it and
photographs and a book shelf full of his works. Then a bed room with
a little narrow bed and a dining room turned into a museum, full of his
MSS and pictures of him and all the odd things people gave him from
diamond scarf rings to Lorbeer Kr‰nzenof very dusty and faded
paper and cushions embroidered with scenes out of his oratorios.
These said his houskeeper made him much Vergn¸gen. She spoke
of Wagner and Rubenstein as one speaks of Brown and Smith. That
little house must have been so full of music and is now so empty and
full of forgotten echoes. We came down the narrow crooked stair
down which Liszt used to stumble and swear over doubtless when he
was drunk with absinthe - or with marvellous sound was it? We then
walked through the Park which was full of Goethe; on one of the rocks
were the beloved hexameters Wenn zu den Reihen der Nymphen;
and across a green meadow bounded by flowering cherry trees his
garden house, a little white washed cottage with cottage rooms and
his camp bed and writing table in one of them. In front in the garden
pansies flowered - here he too found heart's ease with Christiane; on
a rock over a favourite bench were inscribed the lines beginning Hier
im stillen Gedachte[?]. We went next to his town house and saw his
library just as he left it and the little room where he died. I wonder if he
walked up and down between those narrow walls and mused over his
words till they fell into the lovely shape we know. Below a long suite of
reception rooms full of casts of the noble Greek things he loved; out in
the garden the box edging had grown into hedges and behind them
were rows of crown imperials. We lunched at 2 with the Batschen.
The Frau Admiral was there, her daughter Trissi a charming little
German girl very pink and enthusiastic, and the 2 awful Adams. The
lunch lasted till 3 when we went into the drawing room and had coffee
and cake - Frl B said to Frau A (who is a dear sweet pretty woman)
and me wdn't we sit on the sofa platz to wh she replied Ach nein wir
sind ja neumodisch! I did feel we were going it. We sat Maurice and I
in my room at the hotel, talked of Shakespeare and Zola. He is an
odd creature Maurice, full of perception. Dined and went to the
theatre where we saw an amusing German comedy.