Friday, August 2:
Quaintly enough, I dreamed of Sainte-Beuve and Schuré, and when I tell R. this, he says he was also thinking only this morning about Schuré, and deciding that his high opinion of the French must have come from his having such a pleasant experience with Sainte-Beuve, who got him into the Revue des Deux Mondes. We work on the biography and reach the point of Minna’s arrival in Paris, where R. now wishes to break off.
In the afternoon into town with “Stirb-Stirb.” Lulu tells us that our peasant coachman is called “Die-Die,” because every evening when he gets drunk he sings, “When I die, die, die, six virgins shall inter me.”
Visit from the dean, truly risen from the dead; he is a man who through his kindness and lively intelligence really delights us; the only sad thing is that we got to know him so late in life. He is reading Nietzsche’s book and is much captivated by it, says there are things in it which belong to the best our literature has produced. He makes the question of my conversion very much easier for me, says that his first glance into my eyes had told him many things, and he intends to take good care of the honor and peace of my family.
We are very moved as we bid goodbye to this splendid man whom, scarcely discovered, we nearly lost and whom now, won anew, we shall probably not be permitted to enjoy for very long. “Oh, this mortal life!”
From him to our house, which is springing up nicely, then to the Feustels’; much pleasure again in him and the mayor.
With “Stirb-Stirb” home around 9 o’clock. Found a letter from Franziska awaiting us, then to bed. “Here much has gone awry.”