Sunday, October 8:
R. had a restful night, and in the morning he visits the children. Later in the morning he starts a letter to Frl. Galfy but then addresses it to Frl. Belce, since he no longer has any clear memory of Frl. G. He also reads friend Wolz.’s article on Gobineau’s book and is pleased with it, regretting only the bringing in of Dr. Wahrmund and particularly the quotation from Dr. Ebers, both signs of that lack of judgment he recently noticed among his friends; he intends to write to W., fearing his letter may have hurt him.
Around midday we visit our friends the Schleinitzes, who have at last arrived here safe and sound. When we leave the Schleinitzes, R. suggests we view something; we decide on the Frari, but it makes no impression on him; he already has his three churches, he says at lunch: the cathedrals of Siena and Pisa and Saint Mark’s. The apparatus of Catholicism he finds very repugnant, but he likes Bellini’s Madonna; the perfection of its painting pleases him. “And now we have seen Lari Fari,” he says, sitting down beside me in the gondola. Yesterday, when he heard about the popularity in Munich of Schumann’s Manfred, he said, “They feel about it exactly what they felt about Tristan, a sort of emotional tipsiness, but there is not a trace of artistic appreciation.”
In the afternoon R. goes out with the children, meets our friends in Saint Mark’s Square, and stands treat to them all. We begin the evening with chat; Mme. Beecher Stowe’s simple reply to a question about Uncle Tom has led to a spiteful remark in the newspaper report against stirring up the slaves, and R. is so indignant that he no longer wishes to read this newspaper; he instructs Stein to write to Dr. Herrig. A letter from our friend Schon enclosing a draft of the statutes for the scholarship foundation makes R. realize with increasing clarity that he must decide everything for himself. The gray weather is greatly depressing him; he feels that he has been living in a constant gray mist ever since our return from Sicily.