Sunday, May 4:
R. did not have a good night and, in consequence, cannot work on the orchestration. Family lunch; afterwards I walked with the children to the Fantaisie. R. caught up with us; the huge firs made a gloomy impression, the remaining trees being withered. R. walked part of the homeward journey with Rus, I rode with the children.
R. then told me that, on the way, he had been reflecting on what he said to me after lunch: “If I were to die now, I should have lived utterly in vain.” He considered that, if he were to reach a ripe old age, there would have to be a change in his circumstances, for it was not conceivable that in this state of continual struggle, tormenting himself and being despised and ignored, he should live long. On the other hand, he feels no diminution in his vital powers, and I had even told him that he looks like his own son (his hair has suddenly turned quite black again); so he would build on that while awaiting the triumph of his cause. I wait and hope for nothing, but I do not say this, for it is his strength that gives him his belief, and my weakness that I neither believe nor doubt.
In the evening, Grimm’s preface to his history of the German language.