Friday, September 23:
R. had a good night, but he feels indisposed, and the cold is severe. In the morning he has to swear an affidavit for Herr Fürstner, much to his displeasure, and we discuss the dismal necessity over lunch.
Then we come to the subject of vegetarianism, and my father amuses us greatly by singing to us in English the words the Temperance Society sings to the melody from Norma: “We belong, we belong, we belong to the Temperance, the Temperance Society, to the Temperance Society!”
[Added four pages later but referred back to this point: “Over coffee R. talks about the American war. ‘Very well,’ he says, ‘one says all these things about America’ (he himself, observing the arrogant young Jenkins, had said, ‘Possible that such people enjoy this world, but now I know why I do not enjoy it’) ‘and that we have nothing in common with it; but all the same this war is the only one to have been waged for the sake of humanity and an idea.’ My father listens attentively to his ensuing description, something he notices with pleasure.”]
A letter from Batz brings vexation; R. and I drive to see friend Gross. He replies to Batz. In the evening we play whist, but he soon goes off to read Woodstock, in which he is struck by many weaknesses in description. He said recently that W. Scott was like Gobineau; the legitimate rulers-in this case the Stuarts-could do whatever they wished and still remain divine, whereas someone like Cromwell, however fairly treated, was nevertheless presented as a unique curiosity.
At midday, as Wolz. is going off to see my father, he throws him a 50-pfennig piece through the window! Letters about Tristan wring from him angry exclamations that his thoughts are now elsewhere-do these people imagine that one never moves on from such things?