Wednesday, December 8:
R. had an agitated night; an eccentric whim of Lusch’s had caused us concern. But our morning conversation is as usual very good-humored. It was today that we talked about the justice of life, and R. keeps coming back to his belief that this world has a moral significance and that the important thing is resignation, that is to say, a recognition of the tragedy of existence. He goes out, and in the evening we pass our time in reminiscences of Italy, above all Siena and Venice.
The Assumption was mentioned again at lunch, and R. said that in the facial expression the pain of a woman in childbirth is mixed with the ecstasy of love, and this is why the closeness of the apostles and disciples and all these false relationships are so disturbing. But when I tell him that Joukowsky agrees with him, he is sorry, and he says I am right to follow the artist so unconditionally in his work and to defend him.
Jungfer Schmidt in Munich is also mentioned, and when we part after this amiable chat, he tells me I am the good principle which unites everything. And it is only his sun which warms us and bestows its rays.