Saturday, June 14:
R. had a good night; he dreamed about [Auber’s] Fra Diavolo, which he was supposed to conduct in a hall in which he could not even see the orchestra, and his vexation over this stupidity woke him up. Wet weather; he works on his article. In the late afternoon we are able to stroll through the garden for a while, and R. voices his great longing for fine weather.
In the evening we play a little whist, then R. reads to us the enclosed description of a session of the French Parliament in Paris [not found]. This could be the funeral dirge-or, rather, din-of the republic. R. observes that a man such as Gambetta does not even have the courage to bring a session to an end and call the dissidents to account but, being a Jew, just wants everything to be smoothed over. R. then reads to us the description of August 10. “That is what is so awful about it,” he says. “Things are destroyed not by the strength of an aggressor, but always by the weakness of the degenerates on the other side.” We talked to Herr R. about Schopenhauer’s philosophy and urged him to get to know it, for his own good.