Tuesday, June 8:
R. slept well, and he goes for an early-morning walk, but then complains that there is no shade and no level path; it is all so hilly. Thoughts of the palace gardens! I wrote to Herr v. Bürkel and add to R.’s notes, at his request, the remark that what would be best of all would be a director of good will and understanding. R. says: “Though the Court theaters are bad institutions, all it would need to have things put right would be a few well-disposed theater directors, as well as a princess on the throne with sympathy for my cause. But the princes all have other ideas in their heads!” At lunch he reports that he has been writing about Raphael.
R. and I sit on the terrace in the afternoon, then walk to the palm tree and to the vineyards, where we settle down. Contented mood, delight in Siegfried, who is so easy-tempered, so obedient.
Enclosed a sheet of paper with drawings by Siegfried: villas and churches on hills, and a head. Also, on the back cover of the notebook is written: “Note for Tuesday, June 8: The children tell me that R. said to them, ‘I know that Brange is dead.’ We did not speak of it; he understands my inability to tell him sad news.”
We take our leave of Malwida and Stein early, and R. tells me what he has so far written of his article, though without reading it to me. (It will be his last, he says.) In the afternoon, talking about the Indians and the dramas which convey such a fine idea of their refined culture, he remarks that it has now all been undermined by the Mohammedans, and that is the usual way of history.