'Yes, be wise—go, say your prayers, and then, to bed and sleep——
'September 21st.—Alas, must the heavy task ever painfully begin again from the beginning, the steep path be climbed, the battle that was won fought over again!
'September 22nd.—He has given me one of his poems, The Story of the Hermaphrodite, the twenty-first of the twenty-five copies, printed on vellum and with two proof engravings of the frontispiece.
'It is a remarkable work, enclosing a mystic and profound idea, although the musical element predominates, entrancing the soul by the unfamiliar magic of its melody, which envelopes the thoughts that shine out like a glister of gold and diamonds through a limpid stream. Certain lines pursue me incessantly and will continue to do so for long, no doubt—they are so intense.... Every day and every hour he subjugates me more and more, mind and soul—against my will, despite my resistance. His every word and look, his slightest action sinks into my heart.
'September 23rd.—When we converse with one another, I sometimes feel as if his voice were an echo of my soul. At times, a sudden wild frenzy comes over me, a blind desire, an unreasoning impulse to make some remark, utter some word that would betray my secret weakness. I only save myself from it by a miracle, and then there falls an interval of silence, during which I am shaken with inward terror. Then, when I do speak again, it is to say something trivial in the lightest tone I can command, but I feel as if a flame were rushing over my face—that I am going to blush. If he were to seize this moment to look me boldly in the eyes, I should be lost!
'I played a good deal this evening, chiefly Bach and Schumann. As on the first evening, he sat in a low chair to the right but a little behind me. From time to time, at the end of each piece, he rose and leaned over me, turning the pages to point out another Fugue or Intermezzo. Then he would sit down again and listen, motionless, profoundly absorbed, his eyes fixed on me, forcing me to feel his presence.
'Did he understand, I wonder, how much of myself, of my thoughts and griefs found voice in the music of others?
'It is a threatening night. A hot moist wind blows over the garden and its dull moaning dies away in the darkness only to begin again more loudly. The tops of the cypresses wave to and fro under an almost inky sky in which the stars burn with feeble ray. A band of clouds spans the heavens from side to side, ragged, contorted, blacker than the sky, like the tragic locks of a Medusa. The sea is invisible through the darkness, but it sobs as if in measureless and uncontrollable grief—forsaken and alone.
'Why this unreasoning terror? The night seems to warn me of approaching disaster, a warning that finds its echo in a dim remorse within my heart.
'But I always take comfort from my daughter, she heals my fever like some blessed balm.