Monday, February 6:
R. is unwell! Probably a cold; a stove is brought in, and it helps a little. He remains all day in his room reading Le Piccinino, which interests him in spite of its “sloppiness”; he remarks that the French cannot make anyone except modern characters speak convincingly. I purchase carpets in town, eat with the children, and in the evening put my Siegfried to bed with a temperature! ... I read Keller's Die arme Baronin to the girls, then go at half past nine to R., whose condition is at any rate no worse. He is very kind to me, calls me goodness and beauty personified, and if that delights me even more unutterably than usual, it is because I see it as a sign of recovery.
The unfamiliar Italian style of furniture causes us to reflect that, in places where people are easily accessible, there is much less comfort; comfort is the invention of the English, with their “I am no slave” attitude. We also come to realize why intellectual work is impossible in such circumstances; it makes me laugh heartily when R. says everything ends in noise, for our hospitable prince always gives his orders with extraordinary loudness and breadth.