Saturday, January 7:
Today we have breakfast in bed, after a night during which R. got up once and read in Mme de Rémusat a scene in which Talleyrand, after an altercation with Napoleon, exclaimed, “Quel dommage qu’un si grand homme soit si mal élevé” [“What a pity that such a great man should be so badly brought up”]—a remark R. jokingly applies to himself. He comes back to the news of the restoration of secular power [in the papal states] and says there is no longer any good faith anywhere. He works and is much worn out by it; we make an outing to the pier and then to the courtyard discovered by Jouk., at Villa Philippina. Women are not allowed in, but R. admires the curious courtyard with its terraces. Returning home, he goes through the Stein pieces of which I had spoken—Saint Catherine, Luther, Homeless—and is thoroughly delighted with them; he says he feels in some way implicated, seeing his ideas bearing such fruit, and he considers Stein to have a definite vocation. In the evening, when Rub. plays us one of his “Pictures,” R. does not at first recognize the awakening of Brünnhilde, but then he is pleased with it, even though he does not at the moment enjoy hearing music. We finish Keller’s story Regine, which impresses us, and then discuss the curious habit among ordinary people of preserving silence. We are reminded of Minna’s behavior toward Nathalie.