Thursday, November 10:
Schiller’s birthday. I find all these November days hard to live through, for my leaving Hans is constantly in my thoughts; one’s own suffering grows less with time, it can indeed vanish entirely in devout renunciation, but the suffering inflicted on another weighs ever more heavily; I feel as if I might one day die beneath the burden.
Der h. Krieg, an illustrated periodical, gives us much pleasure with its fine portraits of people involved in the present war. “Moltke looks like an unearthed ancient stone,” R. says; the French (Gramont, Benedetti, etc.) all repulsive.
Yesterday R. received a letter from Hans Herrig, who says the journalists have again been chasing after R. Then he says that at a performance of Lohengrin one old lady said to her neighbor, “Well, Lohengrin—W. wrote that a long time ago—he was not so degenerate then.” Walk with the children; for the first time in ages saw the mountains again. In Paris they are putting on operas again, so as not to deprive the public of Rossini’s and Meyerbeer’s masterpieces!!