Friday, March 3:
R. gets up in a cheerful mood; we talk at breakfast about what we read yesterday. All R. and I find lacking is the “hidden fire,” and he remarks that Russian women completely lack dignity. When I point out that Balzac possessed a daemon which this writer seems to me to lack, R. says, “Yes, one doesn’t really know why these things get written.”
All the same, the conversation about Bazarov’s falling in love led to a joking conversation at lunch about R.’s affairs; he says, “No, I never danced attendance on any woman.” We drive into town, and R., after becoming vexed with the narrow streets through which we are driving, gets out and goes into humorous ecstasies about all things urban in comparison with Porrazzi! The Garibaldi gardens, the terrace by the sea, various large buildings, he enjoys it all, and we return home in lively spirits. On the journey he quotes to me Friedrich Wilhelm I’s final conversation with his valet, who told him his death was “unfortunately” approaching: “Do not say ‘unfortunately’ - how can you know that?”
In the evening we continue with Fathers and Sons (before that R. read some of Goethe’s Reineke Fuchs to Fidi); at 9:30 we break up, so that Fidi can get some rest - his excited drawing and reading of Baedeker make R. very apprehensive - “With music I was not like that; I fear the boy will turn out quite cold” (he means without interest in other things). I try to calm him down; I succeed, and gradually, probably via Mme Odintzov, we come to talk about Marie Muchanoff, her first appearance in R.’s life after Tannhäuser: “But I was jealous of your father, for he had sent her from Constantinople - but no, I wasn’t, for I was extremely modest and never thought that things could have gone differently for me from the way they had gone before!”
Quietly we go through all our experiences with this extraordinary, elusive friend of ours, and R. speaks in praise of her magnanimity and a certain naive quality; we attempt to unravel the mystery of her life, but it will probably remain a mystery, though not one to spoil our loving memories. We part in peaceful harmony. Yesterday he told me that he could not get along with anyone except me, I had spoiled him; when I can save him from becoming overexcited, as before with regard to Siegfried, then I feel exalted by my sacred task and bless life for it! [End of the eighteenth book of the Diaries.]