Wednesday, March 3:
In the morning R. plays the duet from the second act of Die Meistersinger and says he can never play it without being transported back to the time when he wrote it and I was carrying Evchen in my womb. Evchen was afraid of R. because he is wearing a different costume. I go up to the children, R. works in my room. But at lunch he reproaches me for not coming to him and censures vehemently but lovingly my fear of disturbing him.
After lunch we play the Faust Overture as a piano duet. Then, in a lovely snow landscape, he goes out. The rooms are full of brightness in spite of gray skies in the morning, and in the afternoon the sun even emerges.
From his walk he brings home the splendid edition of Don Quixote which Mme Viardot has given him. Great joy, for his passion for books grows daily, which leads him to say jokingly that he is well aware that I do not approve of it any more than of any other form of passion.
In the evening, dictation resumed. “Bid that welcome which comes to punish us, and we punish it seeming to bear it lightly.” “Let that be left which leaves itself.” Three elements serve the species, R. says: love, in which the species desires to exist; the genius, in which it recognizes itself; and the saint, in whom it destroys the world.