Wednesday, December 13:
R. had a restless night, and he tells us that his anxious dreams brought him Voltz and Batz, but also Eva with a glass of milk (doctor’s prescription). He takes medicine and, in consequence, remains at home in the morning. He is in a good humor at lunch, if not very talkative. He complains of never being able to get down to his work. But he is more and more absorbed by Gobineau’s book; he says it is downright uncanny how much at home this man is everywhere, even in the Old Testament, for example. When I tell him that I read a song by Luther early in the morning and quote to him the drastic expression “When death gobbled up death,” he says one could not expect Empress Augusta to approve of such things.
He mentions a very amusing witticism in the Bayreuther Blätter, in which a corporal says, “Lieutenant, you call yourself an educated man and you can’t jump over a palisade!” and adapts it as follows: “The Emperor would say to him, ‘You call yourself an educated man and you can’t distinguish a chassepot from a needle gun!’” Today is payday, and our expenses are always very, very great, but R. will not hear of economizing! We also talk about actors in connection with the gracefulness of old Lang, and R. says that if they do not have sensitive and supple joints, they will also lack the right voice and the right gestures - these things go together. R. expresses his aversion for women’s playing male roles; only once has that succeeded, he says: [Wilhelmine] Schroeder-Devrient’s Romeo, which permitted acting of an uncommonly intimate kind.
In the afternoon we walk to St. Mark’s Square and then through the Merceria to the Rialto. R. is in good spirits. At supper Kundry’s costume is discussed, with some annoyance on R.’s part on account of the money which has been wasted. In the evening whist, and with it Dr. Keppler - a source of vexation for R., since my father remains at the gaming table with his partners, leaving us to entertain the somewhat phlegmatic doctor. But it leads to much joking afterward.