Friday, November 19:
R. slept well; in the mornings he is now reading La Renaissance with ever-increasing interest. Talking of Italy, he says, "Naples is an intoxication, Venice a dream." Here, beneath these gray skies, he says, the sad tune is sounding.
He invites our friend Jouk. to stay with us until his studio is built. The many utterly useless letters annoy him.
A biography of my father by a lady called Ramann has arrived here. Two pages about my father's life with my mother in Como before my birth catch my attention; I show them to R., and he is pleased. "There must have been something like that," he exclaims, and now everything friendly in relation to me is called "Bellagio," even the expression on Loldi's face.