Tuesday, December 13:
R. had a restless night and chest spasms both morning and afternoon. He forces himself to do his page. I wander through the town; then he talks to me about the letters which have arrived, and when I tell him that Malwida writes in connection with the canonization that people are saying Moltke would now offer to restore temporal power to them, R. observes, “He’ll do it immediately if the Emperor wishes it; he is like Schott,” who once said it made no difference to him what he printed, “it makes no difference to him whom he shoots.” We go out; Count Tasca takes us to a villa almost directly opposite the English Gardens, quite splendid with its view and its trees. But on our return home he feels extremely indisposed. We succeed in spending a very quiet and peaceful evening. He says how bad the two novels he is reading in the newspapers have become - what was interesting in them was probably taken from memoirs, and all the rest added, but very poorly. No sun today! The Nile rising high in our thoughts.