Wednesday, April 2:
An almost summery heat - I have completely lost my voice. R. works and strolls around the garden; in the evening silent whist and music, Haydn’s E-flat Major Symphony, of which R. once wrote out the score from the parts.
In the evening R. tells me he has some ideas for his next article, but they would have no influence on me, since they were in line with my own; to everyone his own individual manner - the Frenchman has his taste, the Englishman his public opinion, the German his tasteless private opinion. We have to laugh heartily when our conversation at lunch leads us to la dame blanche, who appears as what R. calls “a girl sweeper,” and he says: “I should like to have some white-robed fellow like that here in this house to sweep everything up. I could do with a ghost like that.” R. is looking well, but the least exertion makes him cough.