Monday, March 21:
R. had a good night. At lunch he tells us Count Gobineau’s opinion of France, which he finds very convincing. We go for a walk in spite of the weather; he points out to me the tiny buds showing on the bushes and says, “They are like Eva’s sneezes” (so unnoticeable!).
The form of oath of allegiance now being imposed in Russia makes us indignant-and this petty precaution also seems to us so useless. Toward evening I wish to greet R. before he goes downstairs to work; I go into his little room, he is already in his dressing room; I wait on the spiral staircase and hear him say, “I should prefer cures to newspaper reports-well, all right, he knows the child has relations in Brazil-and,” after a pause, “It’s as if it were predestined, they occupy all the southern countries.” I ask him what all this means, tell him what I heard, he reflects, laughs, and says: “When I looked at my finger, I was reminded of the doctor; he has gone into the country on account of the murder of a child, the girl has disappeared, and within me arose a romance about Schnappauf having concealed the girl in his home (knowing of rich relations in Brazil) in order to marry her off to his son! And, as regards Brazil, it occurred to me that all immigrations there are in the hands of the Catholics, and all that remains for the Protestants is the North.”
We laugh heartily over this spoken monologue. In the evening he says he heard Fidi singing all kinds of things from Tristan, Lohengrin; and his mother’s words to him, R., came into his mind: “Oh, my son, with whom I am well pleased.” He says he expects a lot of Fidi, but will probably not live to see it. At supper he complains humorously of our having so many girls-there are no men around, and they will become old maids. In the evening friend Wolz. Memories of the Nih. performances; R.’s sorrow over Betz. Then many general topics, the birth of the universe, our civilization less imposing than its forerunners, the Assyrians, for example, the aims were different. He also mentions the Russians and observes that they could do with a brutal barbarian like Bismarck to lead them ruthlessly into Constantinople.
He regrets that his texts have not been discussed from a somewhat wider point of view-the Ring, for example, in relation to the significance of gold and the downfall of a race caused by it; Die Meistersinger for the German type as depicted in Sachs, rather crude, if you like, but something distinct from the Latin type. When we take leave of each other in the evening, we think of our simultaneous death, and we feel that this is the way I would greet him in Nirvana-and that we have rediscovered each other, not just met here for the first time. (As evidence of his hard work he shows me page 80 of his score, which he completed today, and particularly the bassoon passage in it.)