Sunday, August 20:
My soul, good morning! —
It really is a dreadful time hearing nothing at all from you any more. To end this bad state of things too, I’ve decided to proceed to the valley again tomorrow. — I really am ill. Nothing will help me but— — God knows? Since the proper thing is always not supposed to be uttered. But let’s — for the time being — call it ‘work’ still! My ideal is still, under Parzival’s protection, in the constant proximity of your eloquent silence, to complete my works, there at the loom! — It remains to strive solely for this still. I am writing to the King today to hand everything else over to Hans. Will there be a letter from you today??
It’s evening. All packed. I’ve kept the Brown Book back to write something more in before going to bed. Here I sit: What shall I write? —
Your letter has come. Shall I answer it here? It contained news — of Pest, of Father, of Elisabeth, of rehearsals and much else. To me it has said that you still love me. That’s what I’ve liked best. — Why will I simply not take heart any more? Shall — now I have abandoned hope — only love still remain to me, and even faith, faith in myself, vanish? You love me, so I still believe. But am I not flattering myself? I have no longer any joy. Maybe I never did have. I feel as if all that I have known is ecstasy, powerful, violent — but fleeting. Why does all that is pleasant desert me so swiftly? How sadly, sadly I gaze today at these beautiful mountains which ten days ago, when I arrived, were laughing so profoundly refreshingly at me? I can explain all to myself. I have become iller:? but why can I suddenly laugh again, feel full of spirits, like a lion? And then grief, again and again grief, revulsion, dejection lasting a long, long time. Even the weather, the rent sky is no longer so beautiful as when I came. All that is an explanation. Except I can see that it is always like that in life: if I am to keep courage and faith, then everything that can be like this today, and tomorrow different, must to me be a matter of indifference. I say to myself: It’s work, that’s what you lack! Certainly, if I am working then I am independent of weather and sun: that has always been a help to me. Then the past, despite the desolation of my house, seems more cheerful to me. But I must be working, you see, just working. What keeps me from it eternally? To know that I cannot stick at it. Yes, the daemon is awake. Even here I got everything ready for myself — gathered myself deep down. For three days I composed myself. Attended only to what had to be attended to. ‘Tomorrow,’ I told myself, ‘tomorrow at last you will again take up your music-pen.’ Then I become ill, feeble and fit for nothing. O fate! — Now I am glad merely to have got to the point of being able to escape from here and return. The rain is beating against the wooden walls: I could laugh out loud — How is that to be?
But all this, certainly, can finally be overcome. By undertaking nothing any more, nothing any more. That’s one way. — And by having deep inside no longer any joy in my own work! How can I think of the one joy I ever had from one of my works, how can I think of — Tristan without renouncing all joy for ever. When I think of Tristan I am seized with terror! And was that the only time, the only time that I was glad? — Where does delight come from, where does faith? —
From love? — Yes, my soul, from love of you, my wife! Certainly that will work: I know. You still entice my work from my soul. But oh! Give me the peace for it! Stay with me, don’t go again. Tell poor Hans openly that without you I cannot manage any longer. Oh heavens, if only you could be my wife to the world! This constant coming and going, coming back, having to go again, letting you be at the disposal of others, — it’s dreadful! Peace, peace! You, my poorest, are being destroyed by it for me too. Instead of just smiles and happy waves, now always these convulsions, dreams horrors, ghosts! — Oh heavens! Who knows the person at his side? What do our dearest friends know of us? If it does not come to them, as to Parzival, from the stars, no one discovers from within himself who the other is. Thus I fear that we shall perish: we’re wearing each other out. Against that, is one now to break? Break with — ? What would that mean? Madness! Could peace, beautiful cheerful smiles ever favour us? — Oh, then, it will be sighs! May God illumine the blind! — I’m going to bed! Good night! You are my wife! —