Thursday, December 23:
R. slept well, and we both rise fairly early; R. tells me that during the shower Fidi reported that the weather was “horrible.” And so indeed it is. Constant thoughts of Venice, and sad considerations whether our center of gravity should not be moved outside Wahnfried.
Other difficulties on top of that; when I go downstairs at midday, I find R. engaged in writing to Herr Batz, a task which puts him in an ill humor. We do not go out. I make little preparations for tomorrow, a tableau vivant with the children, the Holy Family; we have finished but are still deep in discussions when R. softly opens the door. Some embarrassment is glossed over with much talk.
In the salon he shows me the passage he has just been orchestrating (“schon naht dem Schlosse, wird uns der Held entrückt”) and asks whether I can appreciate how beautiful it is. Joy returns, and when friend Wolzogen visits us in the evening, a very fluent and pleasant conversation develops on all sorts of things, on the Boers in Transvaal, whom R. would like to see the Germans supporting against the English, on the Jewish agitation, on the etymology of German words. R. also frankly tells friend Wolzogen his true opinion of Jäger. [Added in margin: “Also on Gambetta, whom he wishes the French would get rid of, whereas he enjoys watching what Ferry and his colleagues are doing.”]
Over coffee I tell R. a nice episode about a nun in a Balzac novel. R. says, “The French ought to do with Balzac what I wish the Germans would do with Schopenhauer.”