Tuesday, September 5:
R. works “in ink.” After lunch I reply to my mother. Letter from Marie Muchanoff with all sorts of objections from my father: not Bayreuth, but a national theater, etc. R. laughs and says, “Ah, yes, I know, the Goethe Foundation.” Then he becomes more vexed and says, “That is arrogance, not to accept another person’s idea just as it is, being too unsettled himself even to be able to grasp it!”
Many disagreeable feelings are then swept away by an indescribable shock I experienced: I can distinctly hear the fluttering of a bird on the terrace; R. does not hear it, nor does he hear the chirping of the cicadas. This impression starts a worry in me which no joy can dispel; all keenness of hearing is now accursed for me. Curiously enough, however, R. can hear quite distinctly the trickling of the fountain and the very distant sound of the breaking waves. A merciful God will help!
At lunch R. said, “The dying Englishman will turn up, you’ll see; I have precedents in my life for hopes like that.” I: “Apart from the King of Bavaria I know of none.” “And yourself.” “Oh, I do not belong there.” “No, there you are right; it’s just that I sometimes imagine how loathsome any sort of existence would be to me if you had not been born.” In the evening I have difficulty in concealing my overflowing mood from R.