Thursday, September 28:
R. was restless during the night, and he feels the final topic of our conversation upset him. He writes to Wolz. in the morning and shows me the letter he has begun. But he is in cheerful spirits, and when I show him the pattern I have selected for the sashes, he says, in approving it, “They will be the gondoliers of the sad countenance.” Around lunchtime, having finished his letter, he goes out, and at table tells us of the pleasure this always gives him. Over coffee we come to speak of how quickly the observation of certain rules leads people into strange conceits; I tell Fénelon’s reply to an inquiry by the Duke of Burgundy: “Eat a whole calf on Fridays, Monseigneur, but remain a Christian.” R. says that Fén., in his elegant priest’s robes, did not get to the heart of the matter here, even if he had been right about the observation of Friday, and then he exclaims, “It seems that we (humanity) have not been put here to provide a picture of eternity.” And he goes on to talk about property, which he regards as the root of all evil. Of the world he says jokingly, “When the Lord felt like playing a silly trick in order to amuse himself, he created the world!” Then he cites the theater devotee in Tieck’s Phantasus, for whom even the worst theater was a symbol of eccentricity.
We then go to the Hotel de l’Europe, where the unhappy family of the drowned woman is staying, and learn there that she had been married only a week! Also that the accident was the result of negligence and cowardice. R. then buys a hat for Siegfried and goes with him to look for a shower. We stay up late in the evening. While R. is resting I read the third act of Calderon’s Amor, honor y poder to the children, then we chat. R. tells us his dream: I had smilingly shown him a letter signed “Leopold” in which a prince had asked for Lusch’s hand, and he says he awoke feeling in a certain sense flattered! Then we discuss his letter to Wolz., which he is glad to have written. He recalls his sister Ottilie, then talks about his brother Albert, whom he describes as foolish and talented at one and the same time, the sort of man Rockel had declared, whom one must try to drive utterly wild. Then we read parts of the Anti-Semitic Society’s manifesto, which seems to us both sad and comical, and R. makes jokes about the German passion for “committees” in particular! Then, more seriously, he remarks that nobody has paid any attention at all to what he wrote in “Know Thyself” about our own blame for our situation. When we go off to bed, he shows me the Cosmas portieres which our little 75-year-old paper-hanger put up for him with tremendous dexterity! Yesterday he told me merrily that he was thinking of having his “extravagances” in Wahnfried gradually removed, so that after our death certain Wagnerites, R. mentions Dr. Schemann, cannot laugh at them. And very gaily we talk of the instructions, recalling F. W. I. At lunch he told us a legend about Buddha, how he was reborn as a rabbit and, unable to sacrifice anything but lowly grass to the Brahman who brought the animals their food, leaped into the fire and found it wonderfully cool. This day, too, we conclude by comparing the merits of Christianity and Buddhism.