Wednesday, October 18:
R. had expressed the wish to get up earlier, in order to gain extra time for work in the morning, but his early morning is difficult, and when I go to fetch him for a gondola trip at 12:30, he is feeling quite languid! But the weather is fine, the sirocco had died down, and though we do dawdle very, very slowly from the Rialto to Saint Mark’s Square, the walk and the gondola ride seem to do him good.
He thanks me for having come to fetch him and tells me of a remark made by W. Scott in The Pirate which pleased him: taken from natural history, it is to the effect that, when shoots from trees are transplanted, they carry on in the soil the life of the original trunk and die with it, undergo no rejuvenation - and it is the same with nations. R. observes that this gives cause for reflection regarding the possibility of a new life for mankind; but he himself, he says, places his reliance, as far as this idea is concerned, on religion. Still, W. Scott’s remark pleases him, and he can understand the delight men such as Schop. and Gob. took in this intelligent writer.
On our return home, the unexpected arrival of the piano, as well as the question of where to put it, makes R. cross. And when the whole large family is not yet assembled at around 4:30, he also feels vexed. But this soon vanishes, and we have a very merry walk as well as a rest in Saint Mark’s Square with our friends the Schleinitzes.
In the evening, since the children are all at the Pal. Malipiero, we spend the hours tranquilly together, occupying ourselves first with Siegfried’s study timetable, then with a modern play, Vater und Söhne, which we come upon by chance and find most curious. An Indian saying from the Hitopadesa collection about the immutability of character, as shown by the crooked tail of a dog, amuses R. greatly.