The Flying Dutchman, because — in her own words — The Flying Dutchman is not a Wagner opera. And she thinks she’s right, as so many do. The clothes she wears on such occasions are of the simplest, much simpler even than the simplest, and yet this simplicity is what attracts the greatest attention. You know, the opera is supremely important for my business, she always says. People are quite crazy about music, which they don’t understand, and take my remaindered goods off my hands. By remaindered goods she means plots of not less than a thousand acres, or what she calls city centre lots, which bring in the highest returns in the shortest time. And it’s really a delight to watch her at table. The way she takes her soup or eats her salad, and so on, makes everyone around her appear, if not positively common, then at least of an inferior stamp. The only possible match for her would be an ancient dowager from the best stable, as they say. But how dreadful to be constantly the centre of attention and never out of the limelight! I can only guess what it must be like, but it must be much more dreadful than I can possibly imagine. I’ve always had the gift of going more or less unnoticed, of keeping myself to myself, even at the largest gathering, and so I’ve always had the advantage of being able to pursue my own inclinations, my own thoughts and fancies, as I wish. Hence the way I conduct myself in company has always stood me in better stead; it’s the one best suited to me, quite the opposite of the one best suited to my sister. No matter where or when she makes her entrance and becomes the focus of all eyes, she always appears utterly natural. Absolutely everything about her is natural — everything she does, everything she says, as well as everything she doesn’t say, everything she keeps to herself. One might think there was no more natural person in the world. It’s as though she didn’t have to give a single thought to anything. But equally naturally that is mistaken. I know how much calculation goes into everything she undertakes, how carefully everything is concocted before she finally dishes it up in front of all these people. In the most natural way in the world she constantly gives them to understand — though of course it isn’t true for a moment — that she has read, if not everything, then at any rate most things, that she has seen, if not everything, then at any rate most things, that she has met and is well acquainted, if not with all, then at any rate with most of the important and famous people who matter. And all this she gives them to understand without actually saying anything of the sort. Although she knows nothing about music and hasn’t even a superficial understanding of it, everybody believes she knows a great deal about music. And the same goes for literature, even philosophy. Where others have to make a continual effort to keep up, she doesn’t need to worry about a thing: everything comes to her at will, quite automatically. Naturally she is educated, in a manner of speaking, but only superficially. Naturally she knows a lot, more than most of the people she associates with, but her knowledge is of the most superficial kind, and yet nobody notices this. Where others constantly have to convince you in order not to be defeated and collapse and make themselves ridiculous, she remains silent and invariably scores a triumph, or else she makes some perfectly timed remark, from which it follows that she is in control of the whole scene. I have never seen my sister worsted. She, on the other hand, has often seen me come to grief over some quite ludicrous point. Two more different, more contrasting characters it would be impossible to imagine. This is probably the source of the tension between us. I have money and never talk about it, she once said, you have philosophy and never talk about it. This observation demonstrates where we both stand, and possibly also, I fear, where we have come to a standstill. Everywhere in the house there are traces of my sister. Wherever my glance falls, she was there. She’s moved this, she’s left that lying around, she’s not closed this window properly, she’s left all those half-empty glasses around. And I’ve no intention of tidying up the mess she’s made. On her bed I found Proust’s Combray, as if it had been thrown down in a fit of rage. I’m sure she didn’t get very far. But I can’t say either that she reads only inferior things. In her choice of reading matter she continually reaches a remarkable standard for a woman of her age and social position, and altogether for one with her background and leanings. If anyone should ever read these notes, he’ll wonder what is the point of my going on and on about my sister in this way. It is this: my sister has dominated me ever since childhood, and whenever she leaves it takes me several days to get over her. She may have left physically, but she is still present everywhere in the clearest and for me most terrible way. Above all she was present on this last evening, as I was most painfully aware, and precisely because she had left, this continuing monstrous presence of hers made me increasingly certain that it was impossible to force her out of the house only hours after her physical departure. She can’t be forced out, she stays as long as she wishes, and on this particular evening her wish to stay was enormously intense because I wanted her out of the house, because I wanted to start work on Mendelssohn Bartholdy the following morning. Only a fool would have believed that he could actually begin work just a few hours after she’d left, just like that, and it was I who was the fool. It’s always taken me several days to free myself from my sister after her departure. On this one occasion I’d hoped for exceptional luck. But I didn’t get it. I’ve never had this sort of luck. And isn’t she right, perhaps, to say that my work on Mendelssohn Bartholdy is just a pretence to justify my absurd way of life, which is entirely without any justification unless it produces something written, something completed? I fall upon Schönberg in order to justify myself, upon Reger, upon Joachim, even upon Bach, simply to justify myself, just as I am now, for the very same reason, falling upon Mendelssohn. Basically I have no right whatever to lead the life I do, which is as unparalleled — and as terrible — as it is expensive.