Saturday, March 13:
“The swan of Leipzig”: that is what the Signale today calls Rich. Much amused by it. A short notice in the Karlsruher Zeitung announces the publication of the pamphlet on the Jews and gives the opinion that by treating a whole race of people, including its eminent composer, ruthlessly, and also by treating all his opponents contemptuously, R. is harming both himself and his cause!
Unfortunately R. cannot go to his work, because the piano tuner is coming; he is agitated. We discuss our situation and my condition and resolve to engage a nurse from outside. Seldom indeed have two human beings lived in such isolation as we.
R. goes for a walk, but brings no letter back from town for me. I still do not know whether I shall see the children again! In the evening R. reads me “Ecken Ausfahrt,” translated by Simrock. Dietrich von Bern the true German type: calm and deliberate, utterly lacking in aggression, but terrible strength when once roused.
The obituaries on Berlioz are all embarrassed in tone.
Sunday, March 14:
A poor soldier from the papal army came around begging yesterday; he had walked across the Gotthard and his right toe was frostbitten. He had good testimonials, and when on my instructions he was given five francs he wept with gratitude and joy. I was reminded then of the wish I had expressed as a child and still had as a girl to devote myself to the care of the poor. How far away from that I now am! And yet, when I see such misery, I have the feeling of having missed my vocation.
Snow has once more settled over the countryside, le linceul, as we call it! R. is extremely worried about my condition; we go for a walk in the garden. Then we get the children to dance.
In the evening R. looks at me and says: if only he had not brought me such distress; if he had never entered my life, I should now be sitting quietly in Berlin, reading Winckelmann in peace! At that I can only laugh, but when he afterward reads me Minna von Barnhelm I have, foolish as it may sound, to weep. I cannot hear certain emotions, as spoken by his voice, without my whole inner being’s trembling; and when I then contemplate him I have to acknowledge within my soul how unworthy of him I am, and swear to give him that loyalty which bears all suffering with rejoicing and without flinching.