Saturday, January 17:
R. had a bad night with wild dreams, among others that Frau Wesendonck showed him a newborn child, remarking that in her case this does not cease; then, with the utmost naivete, she gave the child the breast; it had a curious decoration on its head and looked precocious, making R. think it had white hair. “How naive people are here!” R. said. Then a great, powerful hawk attacked the mother and child, R. drove it off, but it kept swooping down on them again. Then he woke up.
After that he met me in the street in Paris, dressed in black and looking very pale and sad, and he wanted to take me home. “But, my God, Minna is still alive, she'll again say she has nothing in the oven. A stop must be put to this nonsense.” In silence we had then started on our way, losing ourselves in the streets, which became more and more confusing.
Yesterday I took delight in a budding cyclamen; I had given the little pot to Malwida, she went away, now the little plant is putting forth its blossoms. It is not as little children I should like to be, but as plants, soundlessly inhaling elements poisonous to mankind, soundlessly exhaling balm, silently giving joy, silently fading, striving toward the light, stretching out protecting arms.
When I tell R. about the blossoming cyclamen, he says: “Yes, you are still grateful, you have this gift, or you are still so young that you can take pleasure in something amid all this vexation. I cannot.” The children skating very prettily. On his return home R. finds a letter from our good Heckel, who did not write to Herr Wesendonck as had been decided here: instead of returning to this gentleman's proposal, he made him another one, which Herr W. has of course turned down. That's how it is, everyone thinks he knows.
R. laughs a lot when I tell him that in this matter one requires not the faith of an infidel, but the patience of a Christian. In the evening the composure of the Upanishads is thus miraculously attained, and on this composure a ringing delight floats as on clear, still water. Here is brahman, devoutness achieved, this is nonexistence and one is close to the All-Seeing. When I spoke of the purity and chastity of this music, R. says, “Yes, it is German, and that was his foundation; it also occurs in Mozart, though his true foundation was the ingratiating art of Italian opera.” A passage based on untranslatable word play omitted.