Sunday, June 8:
R. had a good night, though we were a little worried at the beginning: the snake in the aquarium has disappeared, and we feared it might crawl into Siegfried’s bed; we both go there, one after another, but all is quiet - just a silent gulping in the aquarium!
Toward noon, when I see R. again, I find him a little unwell and in low spirits; he thinks that a glass of his mineral water, which he had had put on ice, may have disagreed with him. But by coffee time he is already somewhat better. I tell him about the church to which I had gone with the children for the confirmation of the young Staff girl; about The Imitation of Christ, which I have been reading and which much affected me; and about a lovely, pale peasant girl dressed in the ugly costume of the Hummelbauers, a strange kind of loveliness to which one has literally to accustom oneself. He exclaims, 'Oh, it is terrible, this chasm that exists between us and the church - it is quite evil!' Yet to how many people is it a comfort!
In the afternoon he reads in the summerhouse, and we then stroll together in the garden. The sky was overcast in the morning, but now it is bright, and the birds are tireless in their greetings. The weather is so fine in the evening that we fix our long-projected drive to Franconian Switzerland for tomorrow morning. Hasty packing and giving instructions - R. calls me Napoleon! An evening of chat, nice telegram from the Knights of the Grail.
[Added at a later date but referred back to this day: 'R. tells me that he saw the two girls, I[solde] and E[va], sitting on our grave, and when he asked them what they were doing there: Looking for worms for the tortoise. This answer amused him very much.']