Wednesday, August 2:
Constant rain; R. sees it as a judgment on him for settling here at all. Yesterday he was still joking about the barometer, saying it is human, it lies when it is showing good weather. At lunch we have the former directors of the Leipzig theater, Countess Voss, and Frau V. Meyendorff. It is lively and gay, and in the afternoon R. can stroll in the garden, delighting in it as a paradise in which all the animals live in friendship together. R. and I are in the theater from 5 to 9 on account of a rehearsal with Frl. Malten and Herr Jager. The rehearsal wears R. out but also satisfies him; it is truly moving how indefatigable and how unshakably earnest all our participants are, down to the least of them! Returning home, we find the children hungrily awaiting us; they misunderstand our instruction to eat right away, thinking we have already eaten, and have themselves served before we come in; this leads to vexation on our part, resentment from the children, and a whole scene, which dissolves into cheerful peace, however, after the children at first go secretly off to bed, then get up again! The weather is bad again.