Saturday, December 4:
During the night I could not sleep, and R. was restless. In the morning he says to me: “Yesterday one instance gave me a real insight into the tragedy of life; it is nothing new, but I saw it very clearly, the fact that those who mock the idealists and the heroes are seen to be right, Mephisto, for example, Sancho Panza. The hero is inspired by something which they can never understand, but which also goes beyond the reach of life.” I: “That is also the tragic thing about love: it requires happiness, which is not possible in life.” R.: “Yes, but for the very reason that it does not stem from life, it alone makes life bearable.”
Coming to his correspondence with Uhlig, he says, “Oh, that time of lethargy, of not being able to do anything, when my whole being was possessed by the urge to create!” The weather is bad, and his eyes are troubling him. A quotation from Herr Ehlert in Fr[itzsch]’s music periodical, to the effect that this formerly so significant man (R.) is dissolving into his atoms, causes me to remark to R. that the only thing wrong about Religion und Kunst is that it has been printed; this does not displease him.
He tells me that the countertheme in the Andante of the A Major Symphony came into his mind with particular vividness when he was in his bath, and it affected him like a revelation. “How divine it is that something like that can suddenly sound in our world, something so beautiful!” Beethoven melodies and Shakespeare scenes, these are everything to him, he says.
In the evening he discusses the expansion of the Blätter and comes back to the idea expressed in Religion und Kunst, also to emigration and the single inspired being who must work religiously to bring it about: “Unfortunately he would have to be a rich man.” Then friend Rub. plays Beethoven’s E-flat Major Quartet to us, and very well, to R.’s very great delight. At the end he embraces me, and after each movement he utters expressions of joy.
I hear it only as if it were coming to me from a great distance and indirectly, as it were, for my head is very tired and I am overcome by feelings of inadequacy. He works on his score.