Monday, December 17:
“If you say you are happy, then I say that you have made me exuberant.” But unfortunately he is again not quite well today. He works nevertheless. In the afternoon he goes to the tailor’s to see about a Christmas suit for Fidi. He has a mind not to reply to the conductor Eckert at all. Many thoughts come my way, things said to me under the influence of all kinds of situations, feelings, and occasions. I should like to write them all down for the children.
Over coffee R. spoke to Herr v. W. about what he said in his essays concerning the disconsolate metaphysics of Schopenhauer: “What greater consolation can there be than to tell people that this existence is a trivial one? We can then feel inside ourselves hope for another existence, which we cannot in any way visualize and about which nothing can be said, but the feeling alone enables us to enjoy it.” He also says that W[olzogen] interprets Faust from too Christian a viewpoint; there is no love in Faust, love comes from above, at the end, and it is to Goethe’s eternal credit that he concluded his work thus. In Faust himself there is nothing but restless striving. In the evening the history of the Arabs. Much amusement over Fidi, who sings a sort of Turkish music in his sleep.