Saturday, October 28:
So, my sweet wife! That seems to be that then again, and done with. Tomorrow at this time I shall be resting in my beautiful bed and awaiting the witching hour. — I know now that I shall find peace: I know, you see, that without this peace being found it cannot go on at all any more. All my suffering is but lack of peace. Now let all conspire, — my peace they are to leave me: the first assault on that will drive me for ever from any connection with the world. Parzival is again wrapped round in a web: but I believe in him and do not budge. He will come, or I shall go. Peace I must have, and will! —
Ah Cosima! — how every nerve pains me! The speaking, the anxious brooding — they are killing me. —
Your letter was beautiful, but really sad: what a mean opinion you have of my delicacy of feeling! Shall my comfort always only be that, within I feel myself to be better than I appear to you! What now of your love if it has so little faith? Why do you so often so misunderstand my words! Why immediately interpret ‘lack of thought’ in a sense so disadvantageous to me! Did I mean by that that I was not aware of what I did, why apply this to my communication of the letter, and not, more correctly, rather to the fact that I was not paying attention to what I was communicating! But that is how it was! If I read a book, a newspaper, it constantly happens to me that some passage so powerfully engages me that for quite a time I read everything further merely quite mechanically, not being in the slightest aware what I am reading, for which reason, when reading seriously I very often have to go back again, having read whole pages while completely preoccupied, i.e., while concentrating on something else. Right on the first page of that letter, it was the bit about the ‘gala humiliation, — if not’, etc., which impressed me so completely as fundamentally typical that I read all that followed in a state of complete inattention. This — once again — was my ‘lack of thought’ — also the fact that I communicated the letter to you without having read it over calmly once again, which would probably have kept me from the foolishness of imparting to you this quid pro quo of an infirm vanity. Now you are so hurt, and tell me, tell me that you are unchanged, yet also that I am a really evil person. — Ah! —
From the formation of my teeth, the dentist promises me long life: we’ll see what we make of it. What I am able to endure is unbelievable: and this dentist has again taught me. There is ultimately about all these pains something which merely passes around me and does not penetrate into my inner life: this remains often and constantly in secure, unassailable peace: to being only lovingly active the obstruction is from outside, and for that reason I am so unhappy because I am quite aware of this yet cannot substantiate it. God, what heavens I wanted to build up for you and Parzival! — Really, only one thing should strike at my life’s nerve, only my beloved should be able to do it. But I believe that only your loss, your death, could. Misunderstanding and error which make you blind and unjust against me, touch me only as life’s other distresses do, but for a different reason: whilst I know that these do not touch me to the core because they cannot reach to it, I feel that you do not either, because you brush by and take hallucination to be what is real. But then I know that you are helped by love, and the glorious clarity of your gaze will soon make you recognize what is right. That I know — for I believe. And so I believe also in Parzival: my dreams show me dangers, but it is not me they can strike, only him, and he must be protected by his faith — or else — . No, He will do it! —
And now peace! Peace! Peace! As it is peaceful deep, deep inside me I want to gain the peace from within for outside. Want to, for I must! You will help, and will lead the way for Parz. with your fine example? Won’t you? — But example means — not forgiving — but being sorry that you could suffer on account of me? Is that bold? — But only thus is it true! Do not suffer! Do not suffer! — Just love!