Wednesday, January 18:
He had a good night, and he is very cheerful at lunch, when, among other things, he talks of his definite resolve to travel up the Nile, in order to see “where Barthel gets his cider.” His current account shows good revenues, and that as always delights him.
[Added seven pages later but referred back to this point: “In the morning, when he went out with the children, R. met the Abbé Jecker, tutor to Count Mazzarino; at their first meeting he had made a good impression, but this time he seems fulsome and at the same time reserved. R. feels he has received a mot d’ordre [instruction], and he resolves to make clear to the mother and other relatives that he considers it a great shame to deliver this fine boy up to such slavery. With regard to Lusch’s nonarrival, R. takes out Hamlet and reads the final speech, adding, ‘The rest is silence’ - that is my motto.’”]
In splendid weather we take a very lovely drive to S. Maria Gesu, both the journey there and the view utterly enchant us. In the evening he reads to us a page in Renan about faith and certainty which pleases him very much. We talk about marriages, and how seldom one can be described as happy.
[The previous sentence was originally begun: “A letter from Lusch talking of the prospect of a marriage, which caused great excitement among the children, brings our conversation to marriage.” This is crossed out, obviously because it was entered on the wrong date; see January 20, last sentence?]
Then we come to the subject of age, and when we tell R. he is becoming increasingly handsome, and the same amiable remark is made about me, he says, “You have acquired a beautiful serenity.” He then claims always to be hearing me “warbling” with the children!
In the evening, when we are assembled in my salon, our neighbors, a married couple from America, start singing hymns in two-part harmony; this at first makes us laugh, particularly since the husband sings the bass very inaccurately, but gradually it becomes almost moving, and at any rate arouses in us reflection and contemplation. Then at R.’s request Rub. plays a Chopin polonaise.
(Bismarck’s efforts, aimed apparently at revising the constitution, cause R. to recall his conversation with Herr von Lutz in 1865; the latter told him that they would rather go along with Prussia than with Austria, because Prussia would greatly restrict constitutionalism. According to this, R. observes, everything that has happened since has been a parenthesis.)