Wednesday, November 12:
R. did not have a bad night, but the condition of his nose is, if anything, worse, and he feels severe pains in his brain. Dr. Landgraf comes, and precautions are taken that the steam, passing through a funnel, does not rise too violently into R.'s face; the preparation of the paper cone amuses him, and he says to the doctor, “We shall have to send this to the next World Exposition.”
(Added on a later page, but referred back to this point: “R. calls the cone the nose of God, in contrast to the eye and the finger of God.”)
In the morning he reads Weber's account of his African journey with interest, but is sorry that his new friend should have spent his time digging for diamonds. At lunch, probably recalling the effect Keller's story had on him, he praises the artistic economy of Don Quixote, how sparing he is in describing the adventures, so that they always have their effect. He had already said, after our reading last night: “We are no longer artists nowadays. The short stories of Lope and Cervantes may be insignificant, but what form they have! Whereas even Goethe and Schiller were always just searching, experimenting.”
Today he has been reading Othello, in connection with something Herr v. St. said to him about the acting of Salvini; he says to me: “Women are better than men, that is something I realized today, and I thought of a lot of things which moved me very much. But the poetry I do not like at all, this realism tears one literally to shreds, it’s terrible.”
I remained with friend Gersdorff in the salon, and R., coming from his afternoon rest, found us there, sat down, and asked us to stay; he talked in a splendid and very touching way of his happiness, which he is enjoying just as it is, wanting nothing changed. He says he posed a question, the answer was “Ba ba!,” and now he has stopped searching and is happy, enjoying his life without any abstract nonsense. When he hears Lusch playing the piano, he is pleased and says to me, “I have no idea how that came about, how you educated your children at all - it has happened without any fuss.”
Our mood is a curious one, calm and pleasant, and it is blessed by our being entirely alone together, our friends having been invited to the W.’s. But I am beset by unutterable concern when I notice at the whist table how very run down R. looks. Whether it is due to pain, the fact that he is forbidden to take snuff, or the air in the room, only God knows, and God also knows how I manage to bear so much worry, however much in His abundant goodness He thinks of me - oh, who can measure, describe, or even guess at the feelings within my soul! R. talks to me again during the evening about Othello, who, he says, becomes downright repulsive. I: “That is perhaps what Shakespeare wanted.” He: “Wanted - rubbish! He had no choice - that is how he saw it.” “And Desdemona, the silly goose - not to guess what was tormenting him, always bringing up Cassio!” “That is how he had to show her naivety and innocence.” He finds Desdemona the purest and most complete female figure in Shakespeare, and mentions her exclamation “O, these men, these men!” The fact that we were alone together today brought home to me the utter bliss of his company - no discord, no irritation, just love, even in the midst of worry!