Tuesday, April 13:
R. slept well, and the weather is so glorious that we go for a walk before lunch; as we go downstairs, R. engages in a whistling duet with Siegfried, in his room! R. takes advantage of the lovely weather in the afternoon to drive into town with Lusch and Siegfried, to buy straw hats. I go to meet them and come upon the small company in merry mood!
In the evening our friends the Liechtensteins. Present-day social conditions form the topic of our conversation, above all the growing influence of the Jews; R. is vexed by a remark from the Prince, more or less to the effect that nothing can be done about it. He says of Bismarck that one presumed him to represent the power of the German spirit, but now there is no sign of the German spirit!
Then R. expatiates at length on the treatment of children, and he says that one always does them an injustice when one punishes them, for what they do is very rarely malicious, and he relates the story of Fidi and the soap bubbles.