Sunday, September 3:
‘It must be so!’ —
It cannot be otherwise! — Our love can only be suffering! — Let us suffer then, but let us suffer gently! I cannot cope with the storms any more. — Let us be close, let us stay close — that is all! Let us control the suffering: let us assuage it! Perhaps the sharp quills will now soon be blunted; they have stabbed enough; let us, with artistry, grind away at the points so that they become rounded and slide. That is a good form of labour, and with each effort the rough edges are smoothed! —
I am so tired, so tired! But I know now I can still succeed: I learn it by holding out now. At last I have written to Malvina: I have written not a word to her of Tristan. Not to speak of him is for me a necessity. I notice that I have been put into a dream-like state by this death. If I remain in this state I dream, and like that it is fine: In it I am inviolable and at home! To speak, to hear, any word of him rouses me from that dream, and the awakening is fearful: I am not able, and do not care, to endure life; I cannot exist. All is madness to me! — See, I am doing it now with you! I cannot speak of you. As no one gets shown in to see me that is tantamount to my not being allowed to think of you; i.e. to not conceiving that you really exist and are now merely far away from me, worshipping your father daily and doing this and that: but this I can only not — conceive thus when I do not think at all of your person. I have, concerning you, to end up wholly in a dream; my whole day, my waking has to be a dream: then it is fine; then, inside me, I am profoundly at peace with you, then there is no disturbance at all and I am united with you completely. Then I delight in what I am doing, delight in the sky, the garden, my house, the deep peace around. A letter from you banishes the dream. Write what you will, I feel miserable; I can then no longer deny the reality of separation; everything that is supposed to gloss over it excites my wrath; scorn and shame on all that is supposed to comfort me! — Oh, from this dream no awakening! —
And so — I must turn all of life into a dream for myself! It can be done, and I shall write all my works provided I am never dragged out of my dream concerning the world. I must not truly see its reality: I cannot any more. But — in the dream it looks bearable, and the dream state itself is fine precisely because it is a dream. In this dream I now enclose myself together with you, my Cosima! Be ever with me, ever dreaming with me. Suffering but always dreaming. No talk any more, ever, no talk of love, of our love, ever, — but loving and — dreaming. And in this dream, let us create what shall rock the world into a dream. How wonderful dying, falling out of this dream into sleep, will be! —