Friday, May 20:
R. had a good night, and he is sitting at his work when I come in from the neighbor’s house around 1 o’clock. He opens the door of the salon for me, stubs his finger in doing so, and, because of this and various other mishaps, no ink, his pen bent, is very ill-humored at lunch; he says he feels as if he will never be able to start his work!
The Ritter children arrive, most welcome at the rehearsals, which we begin immediately. The weather is unfortunately very unfavorable, and when R., to take his mind off things, goes across to Joukowsky’s, he is annoyed to see that he has altered Fidi’s portrait. I find him in this mood and do not quite know how to ask him to allow the Eyssers to work in the salon tomorrow; but I do it, and when I see him later, I find him in tears, moved by thoughts of me, he says.
The evening passes peacefully. Over coffee R. quoted Thomas a Kempis’s saying, “To suffer this, one must be God,” and he thought it right to see godlike qualities in the sufferings of humiliation.