Saturday, August 13:
New volume, almost a year gone by again. May I be given the grace to record only improvements in myself! An ever-deeper recognition of my own unworthiness, an ever more cheerful and voluntary atonement for this unworthiness, a more radical negation of self-will, repudiation of all life’s vanities, concentration on the one single aim. May it be granted me to raise my children in love, so that their love will one day be my fair intercessor, and may my one happiness be to see them grow up in peace and joy!
For news, only the rumor that the Prince Imperial has been dispatched to London; should this be confirmed, then things would look bad for the Napoleons. Our troops are advancing ever farther, God be with them. We read the most frightful accounts of the inhumanity of the French; wounded men and doctors are being murdered, one of the former had his eyes gouged out by a 14-year-old boy! It is terrible.
Talking to me yesterday about Eva, Richter said she would surely have a fine voice and should go on our ideal stage. I cannot resist giving vent to utter repugnance, and declare that in such an event my daughter would be lost to me. I do not consider it possible for a woman to live a public life and at the same time to fulfill her feminine duties; and above all not in a field of art which burdens her with playing the most terrible things. If this is to be Eva’s fate, then I shall regard her as having been sacrificed, and myself as well.
Pleasure in Loulou and Boni, because they prefer working for the soldiers to playing. R. remarks on the prettiness of Loldi’s cheeks, and says: “Even as a child I always sought for beauty in the cheeks; I did not realize that what I meant by that was a kind smile, spreading across the whole face. I once looked at myself in a mirror to find out whether my appearance was not too repellent. Handsome you are not, I thought to myself, but also not too ugly, for your cheeks are certainly not ugly.”
In the evening now always the newspaper; the heroic, melancholy details of our victories.