Wednesday, July 2:
Unfortunately R. again had a very bad night, so bad that he comes to breakfast irritable. But his kindness triumphs over circumstances, and despite my concern and his fatigue, we part in laughter; “in laughter die”—I really believe we could do that! The Lord Jesus comes into his mind. He says: “Considering his disciples’ lack of understanding he could not have kept going for long; it was a good thing that he could now and again visit the centurion in Capernaum—but his great bitterness later, that was due to the company he kept. He had to express his idea, never mind to whom.”
The doctor visits R., and his call has a calming effect. R. talks of Frantz’s book with ever-increasing admiration, says he would like to trumpet to all the world how good it is, and at lunch he tells me what he has to say about forestry; in this connection he remarks, “Fidi can become a political economist, then he might be of some use.” A letter from his friend Nuitter gives R. great pleasure, and he says he would like to introduce him to me, for in his attitude toward him (R.) he has never wavered. And indeed R. answers him at once, today.
The dull weather does not permit an afternoon walk; I sort things and search in my books for a passage in Euryanthe which R. describes as a master stroke, and for which I must leave a blank, since I cannot find it. [Added at bottom of page: “Here is the passage which R. called a master stroke: it is Lysiart’s very swift answer, ‘Aiks nach Gefallen, wie schon wirst du mit Kran^ und Zither wallen’ ”] Instead, I read a great many things and am shocked by the pallor of words, their inadequacy in spite of all prolixity, above all, their lack of clarity. Oh, Siegfried, I am attempting the impossible! Shall I go on? . . . “For thee, beloved, let it be done!”
Much conversation with R.; after we have been enlarging upon Goethe, Schiller, Aeschylus, R. says with a laugh, “Eckert once said that one could talk so well with me about music; I say one can talk so well with you about poetry!” “We shall never grow old,” R. says to me over coffee, and we then discuss the fate and the character of many of our female friends (M. Muchanoff, Mimi). In the evening we play whist with Boni and Miss Parry; during the day R. continued reading C. Frantz with great enjoyment. In this connection he said to me in the morning that C. F. was always spinning the same thread anew: “This is what everyone does who has an idea and lives for that idea; people who are fighting only for some abstract system can’t do that.” At supper an additional remark about the composer of Weber’s last idea occurs to him.