Wednesday, September 7:
R. had a good night; in the morning he stays indoors, reading Trois ans en Asie with much enjoyment, but he is interrupted by a visit from the conductor Schuch, who, however, as he tells us, was very modest, and he was able to put him right on the tempi without difficulty, particularly in the ballad, which begins too slowly and continues too fast.
I stroll through the gallery with Evchen, then we go to the dentist’s, where the main joke between us is the additions R. makes to a letter I am writing to Jouk.! We have a late breakfast at the Belvedere, and since I have been telling R. much about the Canalettos, he says of a man who keeps looking at him, “He takes me for a Canaletto!” We drive out to the Waldschlösschen, where R. has a glass of beer and also gives one to the coachman; since the latter drinks very slowly, R. is greatly amused when the waiter remarks, “The coachman can’t lift his elbow.”
R. shows us the Albrechtsburg (previously Finleder); his nurse’s house, not far from the statue of Augustus the Strong, which he often visited as a child; the Stille Musik; the path to the Weißen Hirsch, where as a boy of 12 he shed so many tears, having gone in vain with his sister Ottilie to meet their brother Albert and having to return home late on foot. Then in Kietz’s studio, and finally a very pleasant dinner at Jenkins’s. The various climates are discussed, and R. declares that where we live summer and winter are the same, and the trees turn green out of boredom. The pictures from Athens give the impression of a desert.