Monday, August 19:
R. slept well. Cheerful breakfast with all kinds of talk about Beethoven’s quartets, the tempo markings, and many other things I cannot note down here. Of his present reading he says, “The whole of history is after all nothing but a repetition of Reynard the Fox, until a great and noble man comes along,” but he takes great pleasure in Louis XI, in whom he discovers certain features which remind him of Frederick the Great. Our coffee time in the afternoon consists of nothing but anecdotes from this history book and is very lively.
A week has passed since I last wrote in my diary — I must try to remember: on the evening of the Monday my friend Luise Voss arrived, to my great delight, and spent the morning of Tuesday the 20th with me, again manifesting to me her great sympathy.
In the afternoon of Tuesday the 20th my father arrived, looking better than I have seen him for years; cheerful and talkative, a delight both for R. and for me. Much intimate chat.