Monday, February 22:
News of Kos, of whom the whole household has dreamed; the others happily, I sadly, so at any rate the honor of the oracle is saved.
I am still suffering; a bud of one of the camellias has fallen off. I am still unwell, and however much I make an effort to conceal it from myself, I have to give in. This morning I could pay only a little attention to the children. I am really feeling it now, that famous pale cast of thought! At times I feel as if I were literally turning pale beneath the swarm of cares which descends on me.
In the afternoon, while R. was sleeping, I thought of the last letter from my father, in which he said to me, “Passion dies, but the pangs of conscience remain.” What a superficial judgment! As if my coming to R. had been an act of passion, and as if I could ever feel pangs of conscience on that account! How little my father knows me, after all!
How willingly I would give up any sort of joy if I knew but one being to whom I could entrust R.’s isolated life! “To bear happiness is also a penance,” Bettina wrote boldly to Goethe; how I feel this now, as I burden myself with so many heavy thoughts! Poets and sages teach us renunciation, life, too, teaches us renunciation, and renunciation is what my own heart bids me; but I could not apply it with a clear conscience; it would be like delivering the death blow just for the sake of my own peace of mind. The daily contemplation lies heavily on my heart; but R. does not notice it. He is working hard and happily.
My only sorrow is that he does not tell me about some things he writes and receives, for fear of upsetting me. On the contrary: I feel that all things become a game when they are shared.
In the evening we finish Julius Caesar. Who could remain unmoved by this depiction of a melancholy which brings to nought the endeavors of great men? Brutus and Cassius feel that they are the last of the Romans, and this disconsolate feeling contains the seed of the death of their cause. It gives birth to madness; even before the battle has been lost, they believe themselves lost.
This is more or less the feeling I have had concerning all R.’s undertakings. I know the world belongs to other powers.
“O, that a man might know the end of this day’s business ere it come! But it sufficeth that the day will end, and then the end is known.”