Saturday, December 24:
A good night, and R. gets up in good spirits. Schnappauf is sent several times to the post office, but nothing seems to have arrived. At breakfast we talk about the characters of Bonaparte and Talleyrand, the one very fiery and full of imagination, like someone from antiquity with his wild openheartedness and his naïveté even in mendacity, the other superior on account of his coldness. R. says he is reading it as if it were natural history.
At eleven o’clock, as I am at my writing desk, R. comes in, followed by somebody I take to be Schnappauf, and he says, “Nothing has arrived.” I: “An excellent thing that my birthday should turn into a calamity for you!” He continues to approach with his companion, and at last I recognize Joukowsky. When the astonished laughter has subsided, I manage to learn that he has come bringing some things for R. in order to ensure they are here in time. The day passes in talk about our surprise; that is how people should be, R. observes.
Vexation at coffee time: a sick lady, Princess Lieven, wants one of our rooms, which upsets R. greatly. But at 6 o’clock the tree in the conservatory succeeds in taking me completely by surprise; I had been told that there would be no tree this year, and now I find a little fir standing there - so for the first time a Christmas tree shines on us quite unexpectedly! What R. said to me on this occasion I cannot write down - not even for you, my Siegfried! The evening passes very merrily.
R. reads aloud various passages from Mme de Rémusat, anecdotes about Talleyrand, and he says the clever woman has observed things superbly, and a work like this is worth more than anything written by Mommsen, Pommsen, or whatever else they may be called. When I say it seems to me that a woman is better suited than a man to observe things in this way, he says, “Yes, women have a greater sense of truthfulness.”