Friday, January 5:
R. had a good night; he talked about me in his sleep. In the morning he is still upset about my father [this sentence obliterated in ink by an unknown hand]. Lusch tells us about a recitation of [Bürger's] Lenore. Yesterday R. said how repugnant he finds entertainments of this sort; one cannot help being appalled by some other person, and yet one can say nothing.
We ride together home. Makart's portrait of the Countess [Donhoff?] has been put on display in our apartment — something R. finds distasteful. But our friend herself is received by him in a very friendly fashion; he exclaims to the children at lunch that, since they always imitate everybody, they should imitate the Countess! He speaks very earnestly to Herr Hausburg about curing himself of the habit of grinning.
In the evening, while the others are playing whist, we are alone with Marie; she tells us her situation, R. responds by describing our fate to her. He speaks the following beautiful words: "It took Nature a very long time to produce passion; this is what can lead one to the heights; music is its transfiguration, is, alone among all the arts, directly connected with it." After and during this expansive conversation R. is infinitely kind toward me, lovingly animated. At supper, sitting opposite me, he cries out, "I love you!"
Today he was not at all pleased by having a number of society people come to our home at my father's invitation to inspect Makart's picture. He reads to me a report of floods on the Rhine; the appeal ends with the statement that there is a shortage of money, which he finds terrible — money to rescue the victims of the flooding!