Thursday, January 29:
A somewhat better night, but the trouble now spreading across his forehead. Great weariness. Yesterday was a glorious day, 23 degrees [Celsius], the children to S. Martin; in all this sunshine R. lying exhausted in bed, I in suspended animation.
This morning, at almost the moment he awoke, he asked me the name of the last conqueror of Asia, about whom Corneille wrote a play; I cannot think of it; in the end he: "Bajazet," whereupon I mention Racine and ask him what brought it into his mind. "Because at the moment I am so interested in the nomadic peoples." He goes back to the vegetarian book, then mentions Elohim, who actually demanded animal sacrifices, as can be seen from the story of Cain and Abel.
R. remains in bed; I tell the children about his illness in Paris (typhus), and how in delirium he always spoke French; after that I spend a long time looking at the photograph from England. How strange I feel when he tells me late in the evening that he has had two dreams, in one of which he saw me with a photograph of him on the back of my hat beneath the veil. The other dream was in Paris, at the performance of Tannhäuser, where he saw me sitting with a pale face in a box and came to me, saying, "Comment as-tu osé avoir le courage et le mérite de venir ici seule?" ["How did you manage to find the courage and virtue to come here alone?"] And he says this talking in French woke him up.
He tells me that when he is feeling unwell this, the most terrible time of his life, always comes back into his mind; and the perfumed smell of the ointment also reminded him of Royer's idea of suddenly flooding the opera house with the scent of roses, an idea which at the time he found as repulsive as the scent itself was otherwise attractive.