Thursday, August 11:
In the morning the newspaper brings us Tappert’s article on eight letters from R. to Herbeck, which have just been published in the Neue Freie Presse. He is so disgusted that he throws the newspaper away. At lunch we discuss the aspect of our law which makes a letter the property of the receiver.
Coming back after breakfast to my walk with Rub. yesterday, he says jokingly that he is going to have a diver’s outfit made for me and Malwida, for the rescue of people of all sorts. Then he jokes about having been given eternal youth, and when I say, Brüderlein fein, we laugh heartily, for with him one can always talk playfully about old age. After lunch he goes on from the bold joke that Stein should get his father to marry to the question of emigration, alliance with the Boers: “Even if one doesn’t live to see the idea put into effect, at least one has got a goal, which can be left to another generation to achieve.”
He is much occupied by his work on his score; he shows me how he has had to turn something he intended as a quartet into a sextet. An article about anti-Jewish demonstrations makes him remark, “That is the only way it can be done - by throwing these fellows out and giving them a thrashing.” Regarding emigration, he observes that in view of the bad times which would be bound to come, a fund of a billion marks should be raised and used to cover all the costs of establishing the new community there. The people to be selected and the religious basis of the community laid down beforehand.
In the evening R. spends some time with us, and we play a merry game of whist. (He has written to Dr. Strecker, a cheerful and friendly letter.)