Thursday, February 5:
Since I went with Lusch to a ball at 12 o’clock, returning home around 5 o’clock, we arranged things so that R. should not be disturbed, and at breakfast I give him my impressions of Neapolitan society, which can arouse nothing but laughter. At 1 o’clock we drive with the children in two carriages to the Toledo for the flower throwing. During our drive there, great pleasure in the city, the people, the sun, and the sky: “The only big city for me!” R. repeatedly exclaims in his delight.
But on the homeward journey the traffic becomes congested, long waits, the throwing becomes violent, R. very annoyed; for those of us with him, indescribable anxiety on his account. But the children in the carriage behind see only the fun, and when they tell us about it in the Villa d’Angri, our feverish mood soon resolves into merriment; the children threw flowers, entered into all the fun, both good and bad, and while we were suffering, I feared all sorts of things: that his spectacles would be broken, his eye injured; that when he lost his hat he would catch cold; above all because he was feverish, they were enjoying themselves, and their joy became our reward and our consolation.
Much talk about it in the evening, then about Renan’s Les Églises. R. decides to remain here a full year. A fire put out in Lusch’s room, R. not told. Regarding the drive, R. says it was not a spectacle, but an experience.