Wednesday, December 4:
Bad night; when I ask R. at about 4:30 a.m. how he is, he laughs: “All right, I am awake, it’s just a pity that it’s still night.” I have the feeling that his work is wearing him out; he says variants occur to him during the night, “though they are usually not much use,” but also thoughts of the Society of Patrons and “Shall We Hope?” “What fifths I have been writing today—they are tremendous!” But gaiety is utterly beyond me, all my efforts are devoted to concealing my concern from him.
When I beg him to take good care of himself, he says, “Oh, we shall live to a ripe old age: Fate did not bring us together without some purpose in mind.” “And I can still be of great use, even if people think I am finished and can do no more, just by being alive.” Earlier he had talked of Chopin’s phrase, “I shall not die like a pig,” which he dislikes greatly, observing what a wretched light it threw on the rest of his life; it made him think of his own death (our death), which will be different! He reads to me a page from Chopin about love relationships at the time of the breach with Mme Sand—they were indeed very curious.
This morning he thought about the French, with some sympathy for their present position, and says it would be remarkable all the same if common sense, so outstanding a quality among certain classes in France, the “concierge spirit,” were to prevail. Paris would, of course, always remain the world’s bazaar, but we must not forget that it was a Frenchman, Renan, who wrote the best book about the things which interest us. He reflects on the English and says the way they write poems about “glorious and victorious” makes him laugh, for that is not their way, even if they are efficient soldiers. At lunch much about the Battle of Leipzig, also the Battle of Waterloo, the Prussian spirit, youth, all of it vanished! R. also describes to us the Battle of Sedan.
Yesterday, while listening to Hungaria, which Lusch was playing, R. said: “Your father is much more of a musician than I am. I could never write anything like that, even my marches aim at something quite different.” We are amused by Princess Wittgenstein’s interpretations of my father’s works, but then R. says, “Those are all distortions, worldly distortions, one shouldn’t take any notice of them.”
R. does not go for a walk today, but just to the Wolzogens’ house. He does some work and in the evening no longer looks so worn out. He is pleased by the news that our friend Sulzer is taking over the leadership of the socialists: “We could do with a man like that in Germany,” he says. “The effort will surely be, not against possessions, but in favor of possessions for everybody.” R. tells us about people being expelled from Berlin, women among them. So it is true—they are preparing at one and the same time illuminations and emergency measures for the Emperor.
Busch’s book has arrived, I read some of it aloud, and R. is pleased by everything in it that has to do with practical life, for example, the Chancellor forbidding Herr Busch the noisy talk about strategy. He is also amused by the nuns with their lorgnettes: “That is modern life.” In the afternoon my hopes that R.’s health is improving give me a peculiar sense of well-being; as I watch the snow falling, I lose myself in thoughts of the future and praise Fate for my existence. (“Ich grolle nicht” [“I do not complain”]—this line, recalled to mind in some connection or other, leads R. to the unpleasant and unfitting aspects of lyric poetry. Something like Goethe’s “Zueignung” [“Dedication”], in which a picture of the whole of life is conveyed in tranquillity, is quite different, he says.)