Saturday, July 30:
R. slept well, and he receives the doctor very gaily, praising the splendid summer, in which we have had six good days! He gets up as usual and works on his score. After lunch we drive via the Rollwenzel to Aichig, he delighting in the charming countryside.
In the evening there is a prolonged discussion about the relationship of animals to human beings; about Nature’s cruelty, which does, however, allow for the possibility of good. It is our task to conform to this possibility, and from all else arises the sorrow which afflicts us and the significance of religion.
At lunch, and again in the evening, he mentions how painful it is to see the French being always so childish, not to say silly, in their remarks about the Germans, even when, as in Jacolliot, for instance, their judgments on everything else can be so pleasing and so independent. During our drive we talked of the possibility of our all being descended from animals, because Evchen suddenly looked to R. like a tortoise, with her long neck, small head, and glittering eyes. R. joked of having been a flea; Loldi thought I was an elephant; R. said, “A pelican, or an ostrich with me the Moor sitting on its back.”