Sunday, January 30:
Dressed the children so that they could accompany Loulou; during their absence I write down the first scene of my comedy. Lunch with the children, without Loulou; afterward puppet show, very well played by Boni. Loulou returns home and tells me that the old Prince had wept a lot as she recited her poem to him.
Nice letter from Schuré; R. praises his simple disposition, in contrast to Mendès: “In the French, education is not a liberating factor, but a shackle,” R. remarks. He works, but is in a very gloomy mood because of the Walküre affair. It makes me melancholy to think that he has to buy the possibility of completing his work by sacrificing the earlier parts of it. The nature of the world seems to me to stand revealed thereby. Letter to the children from Aunt Isa. At such a time a veil descends on my soul; or rises from it and clouds all my thoughts.