Friday, June 14:
R. slept better, rose very early, went for a walk with the children; after that a rest for him and for me and Boni’s examination in church; she passes it satisfactorily.
In the afternoon R. decides on a drive to the forester’s lodge at Ottmannsreuth, splendid picnic on a mossy bank in the woods after a nice walk. It reminds R. of Don Quixote with the shepherds, when, divested of all absurdity, he appears literally like a savior. R. feels so well and enjoys these hours so much that they remain in my memory twinkling like stars.
In the woods R. reads to us with emotion a report on the Emperor’s condition. Yesterday R. spoke to us about Sch.’s resemblance to Beethoven, saying they had in common an unconditional truthfulness and belief in themselves, undisturbed by the man-of-the-world considerations we see in Goethe: “One can imagine nothing more bizarre than Goethe and Beeth. together, let alone as room neighbors.”
In the evening strolled with R. in the garden, then to bed at 9 o’clock on account of his cure, after reading the new B. Bl. together and rejoicing at how well Constantin Frantz’s letter matches outward events.
R.’s amusement over a nice and very originally phrased letter from my father to Herr Kastner.
Saturday, June 15:
A huge thunderstorm woke R. up and he had to resort to a poultice, in spite of our walks and the fact that we had spent the whole day out of doors. He has a talk with Blandine about the meaning of confession and Communion and shows her the whole essence of Christianity in them, avowal and salvation. I go to confession with the dear child; deep emotion. Tauler preserves within me the mood to which the act transports my dear child.
When we return home, R. tells us of a brewery assistant who, having fallen into the brew, now lies dying; his master was not prepared to keep him nor the hospital to take him in, and his father did not want him. I beg R. to bring him to our house; R. sends someone to the surgeon Schnappauf, who informs him that the poor young man has been taken forcibly to his father’s house, where he cannot be nursed; R. arranges that, if he can still be moved, he is to be taken to the hospital at his expense.
“How can one wonder at all the murder and pillage?” R. says. “We’re heading for a kind of Hussite War.” Cold and raw weather. R. spends much time reading Renan’s Life of Jesus, and reads bits of it aloud to me in the evening; he believes that Christianity can still be rescued for future ages and that up till now it has only experienced its barbarian epochs.
“The barometer shows R. W., Richard Wagner, rain and wind.” This makes me sorry because of R.’s cure, and he is also troubled by his foot.