Thursday, October 27:
Breakfast with the family, with much feeling I take my leave of the excellent lady, who again had some wonderful things to say about R.’s biography. I then go alone to visit Frau Wesendonck. Despite my attempts to persuade him, R. would not accompany me; her poems (“A Call to the German People,” etc.) had greatly displeased him; he also maintains that in the end she had behaved badly toward him.
So now for the first time in eleven years I again entered the rooms in which I once played the role of a sort of intermediary and confidante. I found that the hospitable lady had now become a brunette, whereas in Munich four years ago she had been blonde; this disconcerted me; I was pleased by her friendly welcome, looked at her pictures, and on the way home reflected on the curious dreamlike quality of life.
Eleven years ago, when I tried to make her feel more charitably disposed toward R., if anyone had then told me that I myself should be closely interwoven with his fate, I might indeed have believed it, but I should have been terribly alarmed. Her daughter Myrrha (!) is a good and devoted girl with fair hair.
From the Wesendonck villa to the Hotel Baur, where Councilor Sulzer, Professor Hagenbuch, and Colonel Müller (also Richter) came to see us. Dr. Sulzer in particular pleased and touched us; his suffering features, his refined, precise, but never harsh speech, his blindness, his whole reserved yet warmhearted nature, move me inexpressibly.
He informs me that his family life (he has lost his wife and has 5 children) has been wiped out entirely by his participation in state affairs, and from this participation he can expect no satisfaction of any kind. I beg him to let his children visit mine. Our meeting is a gay one; for the first time the two state councilors met again at a friendly table, for in police affairs they are divided.
When Hagenbuch mentions that he had driven past Tribschen, R. says he could really have turned the one extra little corner, and he tells a story about his mother; when he had once told her that Saint Boniface on his missionary travels had been in Guhr (?), a little village near Leipzig, she had answered, “Well, surely he could have covered the little extra distance to Leipzig.”
Many memories crop up, old times come back to life among these friends, and everyone departs cheerful and stimulated. We also visit Frau Heim, a former friend of R.’s, and find her with her hair powdered. This hair coloring makes both her and the brunette Frau Wesendonck seem literally like ghosts to me. But she was very delighted with our visit.
Journey home with Richter, arriving there at about 10 o’clock to be pounced on by a beaming Loulou, the very embodiment of childlike devotion. The others are in bed. Letter from Math. Maier, also recalling vanished days. I am very worn out; R., too.