Tuesday, January 19:
I intended last night to go to bed, but did not do so; as I closed the book I was overcome by such sad longing, the children’s future seemed to me so dismal, I was so deeply aware that with the growing constriction of my soul I could be of no more help to Richard, that I resolved to go to him in this same midnight hour and tell him that I would go away, that henceforth I would and could live only for you, my children.
But I did not do it; to sacrifice my own life and happiness, how happily I should do that; but then I visualized his life, his fate, and collapsed in a faint. When I came to myself I got into bed, and in the morning I could tell R. that I had slept well and had dreamed of Bismarck.
He smiled and told me that he had been thinking, since yesterday, of writing to Countess Bismarck and sending her a copy of German Art and German Politics. Perhaps she can influence her husband to take an interest in German art. I advise him against it, because I anticipate only misunderstanding from such a step.
Feeling unwell, I sat down at my writing desk and wrote with great effort to Lenbach concerning my portrait. Yesterday I had a letter from him, asking me to decide what to do about it. I went to lunch feeling very wretched; R. is also very unwell. But he has made a draft of the letter to Countess Bismarck.
After lunch we played some of Loewe’s ballades, which I found quite pleasing, particularly “Elvershöh.” He continues to insist that the emancipation of the Jews has stifled all German impulses. Then we discuss the difference between the former rough and robust German musicians and the present Jewish, elegant, educated ones.
Into the garden then, R. to town. I go over and over again the way things stand, and was truly shocked when Richard told me at table, after I had asked him if he had ever really wished for death, that he had indeed longed for it, but had never really felt it as imminent: only at times when he had believed we would have to part had he felt that his life was at an end, that there was nothing more he could do. I trembled at this declaration’s coming so close on the footsteps of my thoughts in the night.
After long musings my mind gave up, I walked unthinking out into the night and heard only the breaking of waves, stirred up by the wind, and the barking of dogs. Then to the children, where R. told me that I lived only for bringing up my children. In the evening a severe headache; R. reads me Henry VI.