R. explained yesterday: now that he has me after his “beggar’s life,” he is certain he will grow absurdly old, and we both will die by euthanasia on the sofa in his little room, which he has furnished for this purpose. “No,” he exclaims this morning as I enter the hall, “that I have still won you over! You are the only one who would have ever suited me, she had to be so lofty and childlike, and now I want to live absurdly long.” May heaven bless him.
He claims that our happiness has never existed and will never come again—though I believe it, inasmuch as it will never return!In the evening, he sings to me “Sei mir gegrüßt” and declares it to be the most beautiful song of Schubert in terms of feeling and artistry; it moves us to tears; this is German—so pure and chaste, so intimate… R. recalls that he first heard it sung by his sister Rosalie.
Rosalie Wagner
(Gustav Kühne)
We read Gfrörer. When going to bed, R. sings “Spin Margarethe” from “La Dame Blanche” and says: “That was the characteristic of the French, a graceful resignation, with a charming form and smiling wistfully as they glide over the misery of existence. In their tragic pathos, they are repulsive.”
[1] Oper »Die weiße Dame« von Boildieu.
Revised English translation by Jo Cousins.