Saturday, February 3:
R. was somewhat restless during the night, and at breakfast and during the rest of the morning he feels so unwell that he declares himself unable to write a thing. (Malwida's remarks about Gob. are still bothering him.) Around midday he goes out with Evchen and returns home in better spirits. A peaceful meal with talk about all sorts of things, most of them provided by the Illustrirte Zeitung and the Fliegende Blätter. In the afternoon he goes out again. We then stroll up and down through the long Palazzo Vendramin, for which he no longer much cares.
There is an article about Nietzsche's Die fröhliche Wissenschaft in Schmeitzner's monthly; I talk about it, and R. glances through it, only then to express his utter disgust with it. The things in it of any value, he says, have all been borrowed from Schopenhauer, and he dislikes everything about the man. Jouk. reads to us from the journal an account of the collision of two ships near Hamburg. Quite terrible!
Late in the evening, as we are going to bed, R. mentions that Flick und Flock has been performed in Berlin for the 500th time, always in the presence of the Emperor! To this I add the King of Bavaria with his Versailles — and there you have Germany. R. is amused by Fidi's having heard a singer's voice coming over the telephone in the Square today!