Tuesday, November 18:
R. had a good night’s rest, which is indeed a miracle, to be gratefully accepted, considering that he is still not allowed out of doors. A pamphlet containing quotations from Schopenhauer on the subject of animals has been sent to him, and this gives him occasion to talk about the nature of Schopenhauer’s philosophy and to remark that all the people who criticize it simply demonstrate that they have not understood it. And then people always want to do something with philosophy, he says, whereas its function is similar to that of a cold bath: to believe no more lies; every loss in that sphere a gain.
Then he comes to socialism and says: “The main thing is not to imagine that the forces at work in it can be channeled through ideas and organizations; if that were so, there would be nothing to them. But one can influence ethics and prepare human hearts for the violence which lies ahead.”
Arrival of Herr Schön’s appeal! We approve it with a sigh. “A great honor for me if it does not succeed,” R. exclaims, “and torture if it is successful, for it will be based on a misunderstanding.” Very merry lunch, R. in a splendid, exuberant mood. He talks about the nobility, tells us the anecdote about the courtier who got into the carriage ahead of Louis XIV, regarding his gesture as a command. “With Louis II (deux) I have followed the same rule.” He goes on to describe the role he has assigned to the nobles in our present time.
In the evening Don Quixote, for whom he last night, after the scene with the convicts, played the Siegmund theme: “He was the German Don Quixote.” And after we have taken leave of D. Q. in the mountains, R. asks Herr Rubinstein to play him a Bach fugue. Rub. chooses the B Minor (for organ), to our supreme joy. “These things are elemental forces, like planets, endowed with psychic life.” “There is the musician par excellence,” he also exclaims. At my request he plays the Prelude in E-flat Minor, and afterward voices what was in my mind - how much femininity there is in these most powerful of works, so much tenderness and touching lament!
When we are alone again in the evening, R. remarks that all the beauty and sublimity with which we concern ourselves is in fact just a way of embroidering our separation, and we are only truly ourselves when we are alone together! ...