Friday, October 20:
R. is still unwell, which throws me into a truly melancholy mood. My own salvation is work with the children; bathing in the sea is very strange, for the waves are very powerful.
In the afternoon R. gets up; he is somewhat better, but still very weak. The weather clears up, and I take out a boat and float for a while on the sea, constantly changing, in eternal motion. Neither wave nor cloud pays heed to my woe, and the motionless mountain throws it back: movement and rigidity, deaf and unreceptive. Will a mortal being hear the sound? Perhaps a mother’s heart!
We talk to R. about the beauty of this spot. “Yes,” he observes, “if one did not always bring one’s thoughts with one.”