Friday, March 21:
Not a very good night for R. The Battle of Torgau, which he dreamed I had put into a pastry, caused him trouble. But he soon recovers in the morning.
When we separate, each to his daily task, he exclaims, “There is always separation,” and this remark awakens in my soul the feeling, always slumbering there, that lovers can only, like Tristan und Isolde, long for death, since life means separation, not just the world!
When R. left me yesterday, I scrutinized his picture and recalled the look he gave me; when he came back to me, I told him how foolish people were to maintain that possession, union, deprives love of some of its ecstasy. He laughs and says: “That never applies to us!”
The bells are causing him difficulty, since he has too many alternatives and is still uncertain which to choose. In the evening he is content to play a little whist, but then we celebrate Bach’s birthday with fugues from the 48 Preludes and Fugues and with Parsifal’s entrance into the Temple, up to the appearance of Titurel’s body.
Once again R. stresses that this will be his last work; he says he will write the words of Die Sieger when he is very old, “and then Fidi can set it to music.” Today, before having that feeling of separation in life, we talked about Gretchen in Faust; R. went into rhapsodies about the beauty of the ending to Part One, how she, full of her love for him, takes leave of him in order to assume for his sake a higher calling. Did Goethe plan his final ending? We are inclined to believe that he did.