Wednesday, November 23:
A beggar who, seeking shelter from the north wind against a doorpost opposite us, starts his day’s work at 6 in the morning, attracts R.’s attention. But the local inhabitants seldom give him anything.
At half past twelve we drive with the children to the Villa Camastra, Count Tasca’s home; a very nice, lavish déjeuner in charming rooms of ancient style. Our hosts are extremely friendly and natural, the elderly wife knows Germany, and she shows R. his photograph. The weather is splendid, and the garden enchants us again.
All the same, R. is rather tired on our return, and since he cannot rest as he would like to, he invites me for another walk around 6 o’clock; we stroll in the lovely, tranquil air, gaze at the crescent moon, discerning the shape of the full moon behind it, and return home for our supper and reading.
We finish Henry VI, horrified by the picture of the world Shakespeare gives us. R. remarks how this world becomes increasingly harsh; at the beginning it is found difficult to get rid of Gloucester, but now people are simply stabbed, and then, in Edward IV, they start amusing themselves. When I point out how indifferent one feels to the relationship between Lady Grey and Edward, whereas, despite the cruelty, one is gripped by Margaret and Suffolk, R. says, “Yes, that is tragic.” He draws our attention to the remarkable nature of the scene in which Henry VI is murdered, how Gloucester is able, as it were, to make himself out as having been provoked to a deed already planned. We consider the different death scenes and the affection among kin, the only kind in evidence here, and have again and again to talk about the play.
This morning at breakfast, which we had in the salon, R. said: “Do you want to see Herr Tocqueville? ... Look in the mirror.” He regarded himself wearing his new cap, made for him by the children.