Wednesday, April 3:
R. slept tolerably. “You poor little woman,” he says to me, “what a lot of worries you have, problems you conceal from me!”
At breakfast: “Just keep flourishing, we also want to set an example of perseverance, to die without noticing it - in fact, to the world we are already dead!” “Nobody perhaps held so closely, so loyally and steadfastly to me as Pusinelli; he showed only love for me, pleasure in helping me, sorrow over my sad life.” He relates how pleasant and congenial the Pusinelli home in Dresden had been to him; he had often been there with Minna. He does not work; writes to Frau P.
At midday he receives the Munich theater representative whom he had asked to come to discuss the serpent question. They have in fact constructed a winged dragon, which makes R. ask why, if it could fly, it has laboriously to crawl up, and anyway it is nowhere called a dragon, but a serpent. His report of the interview reminds him of Brandt and the “agonizing patience” he displayed on that occasion, and how this then turned into arrogance. He tells friend Seidl of the death of his friend. He showers praise on him, tells of his initial shy approaches. “A friendly fate ordained that we not meet too often, for the differences of our natures might perhaps have caused friction; as it was, only the real core, that which really mattered, showed. It is comforting and sad at the same time - but what in life is not sad?” He remarks what a strange effect such a blow has on one; even if one tries to banish the thought of it, it still affects one physically, he feels a terrible weight lying on him.
During a snow flurry I thought of our friend’s death, and then the sun came out, as if to say that it is now all over and everything has resumed its wonted path. R. goes for a walk. Yesterday he told me that he wished the brownlike would turn into bloomlike, meaning that the leafless trees would put on their green again. He returns home and, still incapable of work, reads V. Hugo’s Histoire d’un crime. “You know I like reading stories about crime, and to have one like this, written by so superb a comedian!” He is very amused at the frivolity of the plot on the one hand and the clumsy theatrical earnestness on the other.
Today is Saint Richard’s Day; I give him a little Japanese box. When I go in to him, he tells me he has just been studying my photographs and thinks the middle one, taken in London, is the best, the clearest. “Oh, you are such a good creature, and more than that!” he says. Then he tells me how the dogs caused him trouble during his walk: Brange went rushing far away, little Wana lost her way in a field and started howling, the older ones showed no concern for the little dog, he went to fetch her, and as he picked her up, a theme for a symphony suddenly came into his mind. “Look, there it is, written down. It seems to me very good, but possibly it’s worthless.” “On such trivialities the mind depends,” he exclaims, “the brain blowing bubbles and playing!”
We do no reading in the evening. R. talks of his experiences with Herr Schmitt the singing teacher, who is now writing articles attacking R. in the papers.
Thursday, April 4:
R. says, “Shall I go back to my maidens? In spring the master plucks us,” he says, and then, “Just keep flourishing, do nothing, be Madame Klingsor, wander in the garden.” He works. “I am having trouble with the German language, I find it downright repugnant, I shall change a lot,” he says to me at lunch. A walk with him in the palace gardens, much merriment over Hugo’s book; the Romans and Lacedaemonians mere prattlers in comparison! A catalogue of R.’s works by E. Kastner, many things incorrect and useless. In the evening extracts from Der Freischütz and Euryanthe, much of it played through with delight. Second canto of the Iliad. “I have found a transition,” he tells me as the evening ends. We go through our troubles in Munich. “Yes, when I get melancholy and think, ‘When will all these vexations come to an end?’, I comfort myself with the thought that we have a mission to perform and must live forever; I could still do much to help, if I were asked.” In the palace gardens, getting to his feet, he says: “Walking erect in this world is not worth the trouble.”
A singer here wants to sing “UAttentel” - unbelievably bad translations! “Starch, lass im Teich dein Ggwurtnr” - unsingable.