Sunday, May 30:
Anxious night; I almost thought my time had come. The thunderstorm must have unsettled me. Quiet, fine day, with Lulu geography and piano practice. Family lunch after R. did some work.
Played piano duets of Mozart symphonies with R., then, while he was writing letters, read the children some of Grimm's fairy tales, played lotto and dominoes with them, and finally showed them the magic lantern. As I find pleasure in some sign of good disposition and remark to R. that I really ought to see other children in order to appreciate the agreeable inclinations of my own, he says what strikes one in this connection is not the good disposition, but the good upbringing; anyone who saw me with the children would have to feel respect for me. How happy these words made me!
Regarding the King, R. feels it is in all respects providential that he comports himself as he does; if he had been even a hair's breadth bolder in acceding to everything, he would certainly no longer be king.
In the morning the children found two little birds, which they took for dead; but we soon saw that the little creatures were still alive and had probably been pitched out of their nest by some other bird. Now they are lying in cotton wool and being fed by us; whether we shall pull them through, God knows. They are robins.