Saturday, March 8:
R. slept well, but he is still complaining of pressure on his chest; he feels unwell in the morning and goes out. A small lunch party in our house, cavalry and government, R. very hospitable. Then he and I go for a walk in the palace gardens and listen to the blackbirds, which, as R. says, are addressing “questions” to the air.
Yesterday he told me that he would not be able, as he had thought, to use the Romeo and Juliet theme for Titurel’s funeral; he would find a use for it in a symphony. In the evening we play whist with the children, as the enclosed pieces of paper show. Enclosed between the pages are two pieces of paper with the scores of the games, on one of which is written: “Everybody won! R. W.”
Before that R. showed me the phrase in Faust which had utterly delighted him, when Mephisto says to Faust, “Let’s think what to do.” “It is things like that so unimaginable!” He never stops admiring the way Goethe continually came back to this work and at last completed it.
Yesterday he talked about the Alps, their noble tranquillity above the tree line: “Where a blade of grass grows, there is still a place for Goethe and Schiller; but where there is nothing but stone, there we have tranquillity: it is a place for gods.”