Monday, December 18:
At breakfast R. tells me that he spoke to the children yesterday about “gondola-tombola,” telling them that “gondola” is the theme of the Scherzo in the 9th when it is played softly on the strings, “tombola” when it is played by the timpani. In the morning we talk to R. about Goethe’s saying that mysticism should have no place in Christianity, and at lunch we continue to discuss this curious saying. At lunch he also tells us his dream. [Sentence based on untranslatable word play omitted.]
Herr Humperdinck has arrived. R. explains several things to him, and in the middle of the conversation Jouk. comes in to greet H. This so annoys R. that he packs J. off home. After a while he appears at Jouk.’s and kneels down in the middle of the room! Rehearsal in the afternoon, unfortunately very upsetting for R. First, he does not care for his Scherzo, second, a number of gentlemen staying with Herr Bassani, invited along on my father’s account, have to leave early, and then he is angry with me for allowing Daniela to dine at Bassani’s with her grandfather. At lunch he spoke critically of the scherzo form, saying he has no liking for it, and even in Beethoven the scherzi are always the movements which least please him; in the Eroica, for instance, beautiful as it is, he does not care for it after the “Funeral March”; in the 8th it is somewhat different, since there Beethoven has no andante; in the C Minor he runs it into the last movement; and in the 9th he puts it before the Adagio. He says they have always caused him problems, and, however wittily evocative the Scherzo of the A Major, he is not very fond of it.
In the evening we talk to Humperdinck about Paris and what he saw there. But then, since by nearly 10 o’clock my father has not returned, R. becomes very, very annoyed, saying that this dinner ruined his rehearsal, that if Lusch joins in such things, she no longer belongs to him, his star, in which I put my trust, cannot exert its influence. He says all this in the angriest of tones, pacing up and down! Then he returns and loudly throws out the news which even now, after its harshness has been softened, I cannot bring myself to write down! I cannot stay with him any longer, I flee to my room and see Hans before me, alone in that institution, and I feel like screaming, screaming to some god to help me! R. does not come to bed. I go to him, find him asleep, he wakes up, I ask his pardon, and he - he replies that I have done him a favor by waking him up. We go off to bed, but not for a moment does the picture leave me, I go through my whole life and get up in great misery. I do not believe that I shall ever have, or deserve to have, another happy moment.