Thursday, September 18:
R. had a good night’s rest, but he is still coughing; a compress and a quinine capsule help a little. But good spirits, all the same. Yesterday we joked about “science” — “One should exclaim, ‘God grant it may all be for nothing,’ ” R. observes, “when one sees all this equipment made in the name of vivisection as well as militarism.”
The philosophy in D. Tambert does not appeal to him at all, but the novel itself he finds gripping.
If it were not for the children, he observes, everything would be easy to bear, for one could turn one’s back on the world, but they form a link to it. I reply that he has already been of help to the children by pointing them in the right direction in almost every sphere of life and by awakening correct feelings in them — that is in itself a great deal.
When we were driving home yesterday and caught sight of the theater, R. called out to it, “Be silent!” Michelangelo called out to his Moses, “Say something!” On this same journey R. saw an old woman on the outskirts of Donndorf and the look she gave the artillerymen: “There was so much awareness of the seriousness of life and so much resignation in it.”
In the evening whist with a dummy.
{Added later: “At lunch I mention that I always found the laurels on Tasso’s head a little disturbing, particularly in the 2nd act. R. says, ‘Yes, it’s easy to write it, but it is not seen.’ He says that Emil Devrient’s ideal appearance got him over the difficulty, but all the same, laurels are a symbol bestowed in public and by acclamation — in the play they are just a convention. Over coffee he thinks of Prince Hal’s ‘hanging nether lip,’ pointed out by Falstaff; this touch causes him great amusement.”}