Tuesday, February 8:
R. slept well, and he works with pleasure on his article. At lunch he is worried by Isolde’s obstinacy; Fidi is the only one who seems normal, if frequently absent-minded. R. says of the children’s obtuseness that they have always got something in their heads, as he had, for example, when he decided to build himself a ship and imagined his family’s surprise when he arrived with the boat on the Elbe. And then he had decided to start breeding rabbits; his mother had discovered that when she heard the animals thumping around in the cupboard.
In spite of strong storm winds we go for a walk, and are cheered by our resoluteness. On the difficult little path from the fence to the avenue, R. says, “Just like the German character, no energy left, everything just muddy and messy.” In the evening R. sings the ballads “Herr Oluf” and “Herr Wirtin’s Töchterlein,” and in the latter he corrects Loewe in the run at the end, giving eternity its proper solemn character.
When our friends have gone, he talks about us, at least fifteen years too late, and, referring to another relationship and all the useless disturbance it caused, he says jokingly, “J’ai si peu dîné, as I could say,” quoting Chopin’s remark when he begged his hostess’s pardon for not playing the piano. He describes Bismarck as a caricature of the homme fort [strong man] of whom George Sand speaks. He also tells me that today he found a place in his article for an idea written down in his Braunes Buch in ’73. Today, while singing at the piano, he looked so beautiful, so noble, with a childlike radiance, that I had to tell him of it.