Tuesday, January 10:
In the morning, before getting up, R. declares that he by no means shares Keller’s opinion of the shortness of life, how swiftly one is overtaken by old age; he says that in his case everything has happened so slowly. How long was he obliged to wait for everything! During the day we talk a lot about this fine story, and R. speaks with pleasure of more to come. A letter from Princess W[ittgenstein] about Lulu’s stay irritates R.; he cannot understand why my father does not put an end to this tedious relationship. [A sentence based on untranslatable wordplay omitted.] In the evening we begin Correa, and R. says he is downright glad to go from Mme de Rémusat to Keller, from history to fiction; and on hearing the sentence “She believed in herself, in prosperity, in the church,” he exclaims, “There we have Sicily exactly!” The story holds our interest and pleases us greatly. Before this, R. played the second subject from the C minor and pointed out how short it was, yet how eloquent! He continues to praise the wonderful concision of this work and mentions in contrast the Eroica, with all its “luxuriance.” When I ask him whether he considers this concision to be evidence of greater perfection, he says, “It would be foolish to try to put the C minor in some sort of higher category than the Eroica, but in it the human being has climbed a few steps higher.”