Tuesday, January 25:
Letter from Düfflipp; R.’s suggestions have not been accepted. Die Walküre will be performed. Great anguish. At lunch, after having tried in vain to force himself to work, R. says: “If I did not have you, I should not know why I am on the earth at all. I think I should go mad—on the one hand unable to be other than one is, on the other, being not at all to the world’s liking.”
For me a letter from Professor Nietzsche and arrival of a Semper drawing. I work unceasingly on my purse for Saint Richard’s Day, which I manage to finish. Great cold, we have to give up the upstairs salon. In the evening I read Gervinus to R. (Shakespeare, Handel), great dismay over the style (not to speak of the contents), he writes like Eduard Devrient! Prof. N. also sent me a philosophical book (Hartmann), which arouses feelings of great repugnance. Time and time again R. harks back to the greatness of Schopenhauer.