Sunday, December 8:
A still worse night, practically no sleep, three hours of reading, then some walking and, as soon as he gets back into bed, spasms!... I rack my brains over what we should do, perhaps travel?... Wonderful how fresh he remains in spite of it all; before lunch he goes for a walk, and he has a good appetite.
He talks about Virgin Soil, which is very well observed. I tell him it seems to me that people here no longer observe things, they just exploit them, and he thinks I am right, says he will make use of it, deck himself out in my feathers! This leads us to the peacock, which has just “called out like an Alpine trumpeter.”
Dr. Landgraf refuses to see anything alarming in R.’s condition. R. makes a laughing remark about Turgenev’s tender consideration for Mme Viardot, in that he never calls the Jews by name but always talks of “les marchands.” “Incidentally, it was very impressive the way she got so heated about my Jewish pamphlet,” R. said yesterday.
He is not well, has to put up with some vexation over supper, and Herr Busch’s book is not of a kind to cheer him up. To bed with feelings of concern!