Thursday, June 20:
R.'s sleep was not entirely undisturbed, but he rises early, drinks his waters, and goes into the palace gardens with the children. I sing the beautiful coda to one of the variations in the Eroica: “Ah, that is the original basic melody,” he says; much about the execution, which Beethoven has not marked legato for the oboe, though we imagine this passage as entirely legato. He reads the Bhagavad-Gita in a French translation, having decided on it after a long search through the library. At lunch he places on Fidi’s plate the menu of his christening lunch, which Vreneli has sent him; many memories and much talk about those days. Drive with our friends to the Waldhütte. Friend C[yriax] says R. is looking very well, and during our walk he does indeed behave as if he were the youngest among us. R.’s gaiety astonishes him. Long rest in the woods, R. talks about Buddhism, compares it with Christianity. (He laughs later, exclaiming, “Tat tvam asi”!) Home fairly late. In the evening vexation for R. with the royalty accounts from Hamburg.