Monday, January 19:
R. had a good night but is very nervous at breakfast; afterward, however, he shows me the portrait of J. Schopenhauer and says she is the most significant and sensitive person in the whole book. He continues to read it with great interest.
After breakfast he suggests a walk into town; we set out, but my appointment with Princess Ouroussoff, who is going to call on me, induces me to turn back. R. walks on with the children, returns home worn out, which comes to my notice most dismally when he decides to read Don Quixote to us and his voice sounds quite thin. And so the scene which years ago so amused us, Sancho’s fabrication of his meeting with Dulcinea and his monologue, leaves no impression.
But the town enchants him in all particulars, and what delights him most is a trattoria opposite our house. “Lord, to have had something like that in one’s youth! I remember an inn in Magdeburg where we went to drink wine, Graves; even that, in the wretched state of our lives then, raised our spirits. And now this one here!”