Monday, September 22:
R. did not sleep too well, and it almost grieves me that Herr Schon is arriving from Worms just at this time. When I am taking a bath downstairs, I hear a very delightful theme, then hear the cherished voice, “She probably thinks I don’t know she is taking a bath, but it was just for her I was playing.”
Recently he told me that themes came into his mind all the time, but they then vanished, since he made no use of them. He says he sometimes wishes he were just a musician and did not have other thoughts. Herr Schon arrives; a pleasant man who also tells us very pleasant things about his relations with the workers in his factory. R. welcomes him very cordially, and he then goes off with friend Wolzogen to discuss the public campaign.
In the evening R. asks for the Idyll from Herr Rubinstein; I feel as if I am wrapped around by magic threads, which soothe away all cares, my soul melts in the blissful sounds, and my dreamlike state prevents any activity. R. asks me why I never look at him, he had sought my gaze; I could feel his eyes resting on me, but I could not direct my own; the bliss of ceasing entirely, of complete extinction, possible only in the sound of music, his music.
R. gave many examples of singing, breathing, this evening, how our singers do it and how, by contrast, Schröder-Devrient did it. When the others have gone, R. complains about the way even someone like Rub., with all his understanding, plays the triplets, that is to say, unthinkingly, like a light figuration, whereas he takes them rather draggingly in this otherwise very smoothly flowing piece. “It’s so intimate,” R. exclaims, “absurd to play it in a concert hall!”
As R. is going off to sleep, he says to me, “Now the spasm is going away — do you believe one can die smiling?”
(Reached agreement with Naples.)