Saturday, January 31:
R. had a better night, and the rash is subsiding more and more, but he remarks sadly that, though it is going away, the catarrhal rheumatic troubles are returning with renewed force. He counts up the days since London and notes that we have been permitted not a single good one, as far as weather is concerned, apart from our stay in Heidelberg. Yesterday he spoke about our isolation, the fact that nobody belongs to us; it was not a complaint, or an expression of arrogance, but a quiet statement of fact. “We have behaved reasonably enough.”
R. dictates to me his letter to Herr Jauner, since he is coming down with an inflammation of the eye. After breakfast he talks about philosophy and says that Kant found something eternal in his quiet avenue in Königsberg, an ideality of time and space, like Jesus in Galilee: “My Kingdom is not of this world.” I leave him in a fairly tranquil mood to pay a call, but on my return find him very agitated.
A conversation with Prof. Schrön over conditions in Germany, our army is being increased by between 60,000 and 100,000 men, made him so aware of the wretched state of things that all he can think of is emigration. I am made sadly aware of the depth of his depression through the way he chides me for wearing the dress he gave me at Christmas; he says it distorts my gait, which he loves. Though hurt, I say nothing, and soon see how far his thoughts have taken him. “Our rulers are not just stupid, they are bad; they know it all, the Jewish problem and the rest, but that is how they want it, for they know that if something genuine and good were to come along, it would be all over with them.”
He whispers in my ear that he will tell me his plan, and he tells it to me in detail when we are alone.