Monday, February 28:
The night was quite tolerable, and R. says he now knows what he must do in order to sleep well: just eat and drink a lot. We talk a lot about the C Minor Symphony. R. says that with the march the curtain is suddenly torn aside, for the previous flickering is like the soft fluttering of larks, and it does not actually lead into it.
R. works and with a smile signs the letter of thanks to the Friends of Divorce. He is still not content with his fingers. A letter from the King pleases R., and another from Lusch diverts us, though as always it gives rise to some earnest reflections.
We go for a walk in fine weather along the Konnersreuth highway. The dryness delights R., also the fact that a farmer looks at the two dogs and loudly praises them. Then we talk about the Jews; finally, however, know thyself! - about German professors, and R. calls them truffle-snufflers. Since this makes me laugh heartily, he says that in fact the expression comes from his uncle, who had said, “literary truffle-snufflers.” In the evening we read with friend Wolz. J. Rub.’s article, much of which R. finds good, for example, what he says about tonality and its significance in Mozart’s symphonies.
Dr. Landgraf visited us at coffeetime, and our conversation turned to the prison and a woman shut up there for killing her child. The doctor found her completely lacking in conscience, which would suggest that she was not really responsible for her actions, but for practical reasons she has to be punished. Our conversation ranges very wide and deep; the inequality of moral tendencies, whence that derives, and whether it cannot be overcome, whether it should not be humanity’s goal to achieve equality in this field. The doctor speaks with much appreciation of the prison governor and his influence on the people under his care; R. cites an instance from N. America, mentioned by Gleizes, in which prisoners have become quite docile as the result of a vegetarian diet.