Friday, July 30:
While I was asleep, R. came to me and gave me many kisses; I myself do not quite know yet whether this really happened or I just dreamed it. I have renounced all forms of personal joy; may God grant that my beloved and the children are made happy by my silent presence.
At breakfast I read R. an account of the Humboldt celebrations. He says jokingly I will live to see his statue set up on his 100th birthday! I: “Siegfried might be there, not I.” R.: “Oh yes, you will. You will feel as if you have been swimming in a huge sea.” To me any thought of a triumph, success, is almost unbearable.
Then I asked R. whether he thought every boy should lead a wild and dissolute life in his youth. He says: “Yes, if only for the sake of the salutary longing to return to one's senses. This is what always seemed to me questionable about Mendelssohn, that he never lost control of himself. Certainly this period does not need to be as petty as it was with me; it can be splendidly ennobled, as for example through wars in which one takes part, 1813, or through travels accompanied by personal hardships, in Norway or somewhere like that.”
In the garden R. pays me a visit and says, “My happiness lacks but one happiness: that you may also be happy.” Finished reading the life of Joan of Arc; afterward lost in thought over how I might preserve the children's simplicity and purity. Simplicity and purity, those inscrutable guardians of peace.
In the afternoon visit from Countess Bassenheim; telegram from Frau Laussot.
Late in the evening: If I could only make my children realize what I have now come to realize with so much pain: that a mortal can be great only in bearing what comes to him. He can do nothing except endure, and only through that can he also make others happy. Woe to him who attempts to meddle with Fate and to control and improve things through his own strength. With what mockery does Fate answer him, and how painful is this mockery! But whatever may come to you, children, bear it in stillness and silence and, whatever you do, do not think that you can do otherwise. There is nothing we can do, and whoever cannot learn to bear his lot until death surrenders the only thing he has. Your mother tells you this with bleeding heart and weeping eyes; listen to her, children, listen to her!
A thunderstorm in the night.