Saturday, February 13:
R. tells me in the morning how, having found the window of his dressing room open, he had angrily exclaimed: “I shall never reach old age at this rate! Maybe I shall always remain young!” Whereupon Jakob: “Yes, you’ll always remain young.”
At two in the morning, he says, he came to see how I was, and since I was sleeping peacefully, he went to bed content.
Yesterday a score arrived which moved us very much. A 74-year-old musician, Claudius, who had earlier encouraged R. in 1845, has revised his work Der Gang nach dem Eisenhammer and now sends it to R. for his opinion. The handwriting is very quavery, but what R. played from it is really rather good. It has been 24 years since R. last saw this nice man.
I took the opportunity of asking R. whether he felt as I did: to me my whole former life seems in some way literally incredible. He says all the people he once knew now seem to him like shadows, like phantoms; at most he was ashamed of certain relationships.
My morning was given up again to Winckelmann and the children also. R. works on his essay, which he is concluding in an unexpected and magnificently crushing way. One can see here, as in other things, how much he takes everything to heart, and how he can never desist from giving a matter its full, horrifying significance, even when this is not discernible to anybody else. I am downright shocked when he reads it to me.
After lunch he tells me he received a letter from the King in the morning, but had not read it at once or wanted even to mention it, since he wished to keep his morning free for work. Now he read it out loud: the same old style of enthusiasm and love.
A letter from the King’s secretary Düfflipp was with it, and I started to read this aloud, suspecting nothing unpleasant. R. had asked for an advance, to be deducted regularly from his allowance, to settle some outstanding debts. Now he is told by Councilor D[üfflipp] that Semper’s claim, which has now been settled, and [Fröbel’s] article on Opera and Drama had aroused the King’s displeasure, and he would not listen to R.’s request.
I told R. that Fr[öbel]’s article might perhaps have been commissioned expressly to arouse the King’s displeasure, so that he would not grant R. a favor, and the people there would have the amusement of observing his embarrassment. This upsets R. so much that he becomes quite angry with me. I should indeed have realized that this subject is an unpleasant one for R., and should not have discussed it.
I was now alarmed at the consequences of my clumsiness, for I had meant no harm. The children, whom we had sent for, were apprehensive, and this upset me very much, for I try above all to avoid making the children suffer from the worries of their parents. R. walked off abruptly, and I went in silence, as I had remained throughout, to my room.
The children help to distract me from my sad thoughts. When they are in bed, R. comes up complaining of great tiredness. Together we read a chapter of Winckelmann, then he mentions today’s incident and says I should regard all he said as having been spoken in a fever. I can only press his hand in silence; how could I ever take upon myself the right to forgive him?
I stay up a long time and, restraining my tears with an effort, acknowledge that no suffering and no trial can absolve us from the fulfillment of our duty, and that my duty is to be good and kind toward R., whatever the hours may bring.
I also reflect on the subject of deserts: without wishing it, I have nevertheless caused many people pain, I have wounded Hans, and my children are missing me. How, therefore, can I ever complain of my own sorrows?
In bed a terrible thought strikes me: that Hans might finally go mad. In the morning I had read in the Signale that in Hanover he played nothing but Rubinstein compositions. That seems to me completely incomprehensible.