Sunday, January 5:
R. had a good night, and he works today, after talking a lot with me about Fidi, who had just taken a bath with him. Joy over the boy’s good, sunny character.
Today R. and I have lunch in the home of our neighbor Baroness Staff. R. looks well, and I hope that this deviation from our normal routine will not harm him. It is true that he was unable to work afterward, and I, too, remain somewhat distracted. It has a magic of its own, this life of ours in Wahnfried, but the secret of its success is that one must yield to it entirely and never abandon it, even for an instant; the mood is not so easily restored.
R. reads Plutarch and tells us admiringly of Agesilaus’s reply: “If one is always prudent, one has no need of courage.”
“How sad it is to have constantly to exclaim that all these things no longer concern one,” says R. as we are talking about present conditions; the Chancellor is said to be threatening again to resign unless protective tariffs are accepted, yet at the same time he wants to introduce indirect taxation, in order, as R. says, to gain a power for himself for which he will not have to answer: “Our present calamity is seen just as an opportunity for extending his power; they have no feeling for the people.” We have discovered many unpleasant things about Herr Kellermann. A difficult situation for us.