Tuesday, June 7:
R. has a wild dream about Herr v. Staff killing his dog Peps with a shotgun. I manage to tell him what I wrote yesterday to Mimi about my feelings of consolation on the death of our good Kathi. He agrees with me, saying that in her vain battle against adversity she suddenly lost the will to continue.
We remember with emotion her telegrams during the second cycle, then my visit, when she said to me, “I shall not see you again”; then the visit together with R. and her paralysis. “Oh, death is very solemn,” R. remarks here, “it no longer smiles.” Then the doctors’ encouraging reports, the comforting letter from her daughter, and now her death. She was cured, but did not wish to go on.
Farewell to the Count very cordial; over coffee R. reads to us an anecdote from Dogme et philosophie. He had meant to read it to the Count on parting, but had been prevented from doing so by the farewell fuss (visit of Wolzogen), about which he is sorry.
At 5, conference on the production. Then R. visits Wolzogen and Schemann.
At supper he tells us that he has been sent Herr Lindau’s article about his behavior during Neumann’s speech, and he says that against such shameless creatures one is utterly defenseless. Discussion of the fact that Herr Nmann is quite incapable of understanding R.’s indignation, since he meant it as an act of homage.
In the evening much talk about our good and excellent guest. When we are in bed, R. says, “Vanish, you arches,” and remarks how ridiculous it is to sing this, whereas an instrumental piece would convey the idea; Goethe made use of words, he says, precisely because he had no music.