Tuesday, September 9:
Our watchman gives me his notice; R. laughs and says that in this matter he admires me in the way that Fr[iedrich] W[ilhelm] IV, after his abdication, admired the regent, his brother, for having so quickly got rid of Manteuffel, whom he had wanted for years to see removed.
R. writes to Diiffl[ipp]. Friend Feustel is to visit him; God knows whether it will help. I fear not!
R. tells me he dreamed about me last night. I had smelled strongly of violets; he had answered, no, it was beautiful here. Strangely enough, yesterday I had clumsily sprinkled my handkerchief so strongly with essence of violets that I was unwilling to take it out of my pocket; but R. had not smelled it, since his snuff always prevents him anyway!
Sittings in the morning and afternoon; in the evening, a reading of Hamlet. Regarding the words of advice Laertes gives his sister, R. reminds me what it is that makes such books, for example, Mémoires d’un idéaliste, so disagreeable to him: it is because he finds men infinitely coarse, shallow, conceited, unworthy of troubling a woman’s heart; the way Laertes takes Ophelia’s chastity very seriously, but his own very lightly, men are permitted.
Indescribable impression on us all (Malwida, Schur^, Kietz) of R.’s delivery. Hamlet seen by each of us as if for the first time. R. says that after Hamlet has spoken to the Ghost he lacks restraint, the blinkers which everyone needs in order to be able to act.