The hall’s good acoustics. Not a word is lost, nor is there the whisper of an echo, instead everything grows gradually larger, as though the voice, already occupied with
something else, continued to exercise a direct after-effect, it grows stronger after the initial impetus and swallows us up. The possibilities one sees here for one’s own
voice. Just as the hall works to the advantage of Moissi’s voice, his voice works to the advantage of ours. Unashamed tricks and surprise, at which one must look down
at the floor and which one would never use oneself: singing individual verses at the very beginning, for instance, “Sleep, Miriam, my child”; wandering around of the
voice in the melody; rapid utterance of the May song, it seems as if only the tip of the tongue were stuck between the words; dividing the phrase “November wind” in
order to push the “wind” down and then let it whistle upwards. If one looks up at the ceiling of the hall, one is drawn upward by the verses.
Goethe’s poems unattainable for the reciter, but one cannot for that reason find fault with this recitation, for each poem moves towards the goal. Great effect later,
when in reciting the encore, Shakespeare’s “Rain Song,” he stood erect, was free of the text, pulled at his handkerchief and then crushed it in his hands, and his eyes
sparkled. Round cheeks and yet an angular face. Soft hair, stroked over and over again with soft movements of his hand. The enthusiastic reviews that one has read
are a help to him, in our opinion, only until the first hearing, then he becomes entangled in them and cannot produce a pure impression.
This sort of reciting from a chair, with the book before one, reminds one a little of ventriloquism. The artist, seemingly not participating, sits there like us, in his bowed
face we see only the mouth move from time to time, and instead of reading the verses himself, he lets them be read over his head. Despite the fact that so many
melodies were to be heard, that the voice seemed as controlled as a light boat in the water, the melody of the verses could really not be heard. Many words were
dissolved by the voice, they were taken hold of so gently that they shot up into the air and had nothing more to do with the human voice until, out of sheer necessity, the
voice spoke some sharp consonant or other, brought the word bad to earth, and completed it.
Later, a walk with Ottla, Miss Taussig, the Baum couple, and Pick; the Elizabeth Bridge, the Quai, the Kleinseite, the Radetzky Café, the Stone Bridge, Karlsgasse. I
still saw the prospect of a good mood, so that really there was not much fault to find with me.
5 March. These revolting doctors! Businesslike, determined and so ignorant of healing that, if this businesslike determination were to leave them, they would stand at
sick-beds like schoolboys. I wished I had the strength to found a nature-cure society. By scratching around in my sister’s ear Dr. K. turns an inflammation of the
eardrum into an inflammation of the inner ear; the maid collapses while fixing the fire; with the quick diagnosis which is his custom in the case of maids, the doctor
declares it to be an upset stomach and a resulting congestion of blood. The next day she takes to her bed again, has a high fever; the doctor turns her from side to side,
affirms it is angina, and runs away so that the next moment will not refute him. Even dares to speak of the “vulgarly violent reaction of this girl,” which is true to this
extent, that he is used to people whose physical condition is worthy of his curative power and is produced by it, and he feels insulted, more than he is aware, by the
strong nature of this country girl.
Yesterday at Baum’s. Read Der Dämon [The Demon]. Total impression unfriendly. Good, precise mood on the way up to Baum’s, died down immediately I got up
there, embarrassment in the presence of the child.
Sunday: in the Continental, at the card-players’. Journalisten [Journalists] with Kramer first, one and a half acts. A good deal of forced merriment can be seen in