Thursday, January 26:
In the morning, after a somewhat restless night, R. plays the melody of Chopin’s “Marche funèbre,” and that brings us at breakfast to a discussion of the Poles and their endearing qualities. Before lunch R. reads me Renan’s passage on usury, in which he says that Christianity’s ban on usury held up civilization for a number of centuries. This makes us laugh a lot. In the afternoon R. goes to the new villa with Siegfried, meets Count Tasca there, and brings him back; Fidi tells me that Papa was satisfied, but soon afterward I notice that R. is much out of humor, and then it comes out - to our dismay - that he dislikes the villa and would sooner remain in the hotel. Prof. Salinas’s visit provides a pleasant distraction, and he tells us a lot about the Sicilians, among other things, the frugal living habits of the Borghese, opulent country people who eat practically nothing. (Concern about Loldi!) [Added three pages later but referred back to this point: “R. makes the children laugh heartily with his sudden joke: ‘Children, I won’t go back to Bayreuth - Jäger is refusing to sing Parsifal.’ ”]