Thursday, April 29:
R. goes for a walk and says, “The path up to the palm tree, that is Mathilde’s garden, the last movement of yesterday’s sonata, where there is no more suffering except fellow-suffering, a sweet melancholy, spreading and leading ever upward to Beatrice.” And as he describes this state of bliss, “which knows no boredom, and which only music can bring us,” he embraces me and says, “We are in this garden, on the steps to final salvation.” As we part, he exclaims, “All is well!”
At lunch he tells me he has been communing with me, reading Measure for Measure; I am Isabella, down to the last detail. He feels it is the most terrible of all, because so close to us. Hamlet is much remoter, he says; it seems by comparison a sort of farce (he speaks the word “farce” very calmly and deliberately). And always returning to Op. 111; so splendid of Beethoven to have written it for the piano, although certain things go far beyond it and clearly seem designed for the intensive sound of violins. In connection with the conclusion, he repeats his image of a paradise to which human beings might still aspire. He says, “It is literally as if, caught up in a gentle tumult, one feels oneself taking part, approaching it; tender yearning is not excluded, and there is no feeling of boredom.”
Yesterday he spoke of his final work, the long one about religion and art. This he still wants to write, though he approaches the subject with a feeling of real trepidation, but otherwise he finds the thought of literary work utterly repulsive.
Some strenuous climbing in the garden in an attempt to reach the children. R. tired in the evening.