Wednesday, December 22:
Good weather. R. does some work, but he is still weighed down by recent impressions, and when at lunch Lusch talks about the performance of the 9th Symphony, he says to her earnestly, “If anybody had had an ounce of tact, not a word would have been said to you about it.”
After lunch he reads to us the debate on the Jewish question and then remarks that all talk and all measures are useless as long as property exists. World peace might certainly have helped in this matter, but as long as nations are arming against one another, the Jews will retain their power. They are the only free people, “for it is only through money that I can keep my son from becoming a slave to the state.” When I ask him whether he could not express these thoughts in the Blätter, he replies that he would be very unwilling to do so; he has made many notes elaborating his major ideas, and these he would carry out.
We go for a walk in the palace gardens; the elder girls occupy our thoughts and give rise to dismal conversations, which might have led to angry outbursts if we had not taken refuge in a sad silence. On our return home I cannot rest until I have begged R. to forgive me for not having sufficient strength to dispel certain moods in him. He says he would feel like weeping tears of blood if he had caused me sorrow, and our souls intermingle, freed of their burden.
Frau Niemann has sent a photograph of R. for her husband, which R. inscribes, “Wehwalt is my name indeed, since Niemann does not sing me.” In the evening we continue reading Cervantes’s story, but not to the end, since we find this Turkish tale repellent.
When we are alone together, R. tells me that he slept a little before supper, and it did him so much good to stretch his muscles; he was feeling what a bore everything always was, the photograph for Niemann, receiving one friend or another, the talk, all of it such a bore. And to end with: “One should be glad when wearisomeness turns into weariness.”