Friday, January 27:
R. slept well; our breakfast is cheerful, he is reconciled to the move. He finishes M. Aurèle and gives me his final summary: “Une tendance vers le bien,” says R., “that I can allow, but on top of that une grande bonté, which R[enan] finds in everything - such optimism is worthy of [David] Strauss. Elegance and a narrow outlook, that is the Frenchman of today.” — At R.’s request I write to Venice about the palazzo there recommended to us by Princess Hatzfeldt, and before lunch we visit some carpet and wallpaper dealers, again in connection with our move. Over coffee a letter from Lusch (she is not coming until Tuesday) arouses his anger, and since he expresses this with some violence, it makes me weep and complain, for I am worried about Loldi, and the move is making me melancholy. However, it is very soon over; he observes that when the words Jouk. enclosed with Lusch’s letter were read out, he was inwardly pleased that he had yielded to my persuasions not to send his letter to her; the trivialities in Lusch’s present letter annoyed him above all because they prevented him from giving free rein to his overwhelming feelings toward me. — Count T. comes, I settle kitchen and carriage with him. R. takes a walk along the Libertà but does not encounter his old man, for whom he wants to set aside a sum of money, and that worries him. In the evening, after telling us that the antivivisection petition has again been rejected (Reichstag), he says that he recognizes no religion except compassion, and it is precisely this which it is not only impossible to arouse, but which is now being killed off entirely. Pity no longer exists! — During the evening he indignantly relates what the B. Tagblatt is printing about friend Schnappauf and his decorations [newspaper clipping enclosed; see notes]. He says he is writing to friend Gross about it, telling him what it makes him feel like to live in a place where such things are possible, and indeed tolerated. We play whist, and in the evening, when we are alone, I go along with his melancholy about the new house, just to avoid provoking him by contradiction into being prejudiced too strongly against it. [Added two pages later but referred back to this point: “R. asks me whether I believe Count Gobineau will be able to write his preface retracting various things which might give offense.”]