Monday, June 6:
My child, my son, your birth, my highest happiness, is connected with the greatest affliction of another; this was my life’s sin. Never forget this; recognize in it a portrait of life, and atone for it as best you can. But my blessings on you as the realization of my most blissful dream!
At 4:30 I am awakened by sweet sounds, R. at the piano proclaiming to me the hour of birth. Flowers and stars (in a little golden frame) are then brought to me by Loldi and Eva; later Fidi, in white on the red blanket, receives the congratulations of his sisters and gives them gifts; at the foot of the “sacrificial altar,” as in a pagoda, he looks like a little Buddha, bestowing favors as he is worshiped. R. exclaims: “What a beautiful morning! How happy I am!” (To add to everything, a third letter from his friend Kietz!) Lulu pleases us with her affection for Fidi; the dear girl has a warm heart, may life’s course not break it.
6ten Juni
Wenn von der Sonne Abschiedsküssen
Die Erde die süße Traube gewinnt,
Da haben in Lust und Leid wir geminnt,
Und erblüht bist Du mit den Rosen.
Die um das Grab von Tristan und Isolden,
Sich üppig umschlingend erheben,
Die Rosen so hold, die Reben so golden,
umschlingen sie sich um Dein Leben!
Dein Bild, urewig, segnete Tristan’s Nacht,
Als in Todeswahn wir uns fanden,
Siegfried’s Sonne hat der Geburt gelacht,
Wie Vater und Mutter neu erstanden.
Bei den Rosen und Reben,
Tristan’ und Isolden’s Ruh
Bei Sonnen und Erden Abschieds-Kuss,
Stürme, mein Siegfried, was da stürmen muss,
Hell wie der Tag, tief wie die Nacht seist Du.
wlw [“When from the sun’s parting caresses Earth was bringing forth sweet grapes, then did we make love in joy and sorrow, and thou didst blossom with the roses. The leaves that so luxuriantly entwine the tomb of Tristan and Isolde, the lovely rose, the golden vine, may they entwine themselves about thy life! Thy eternal image blessed Tristan’s night when we came together in the illusion of death; on thy birth did Siegfried’s sun smile down, like father and mother, newly arisen. Over the roses and vines of Tristan and Isolde’s rest, over the parting caress of sun and earth, let storms rage, my Siegfried, as they must; be thou light as the day, deep as the night!”]
Very bad weather for Fidi’s birthday; it does not worry the children, but R. is unwell. Yesterday evening he spoke a long time about philosophy and said that from Plato to Kant there had been no real progress; that Spinoza, for instance, who had acknowledged the wickedness of the world, had still taken this world as it appears to us for the reality. He reads passages from Ranke’s Wallenstein and praises Ranke because he is unemotional. I act out comedies with the children. In the evening I read parts of the Schiller-Goethe correspondence to R.