Monday, March 29:
I am shocked at times by my appearance and ask myself if it is so bad on account of my condition, or because I am nearing my end, or just that I am getting older. I believe it is a sign of age.
Loldchen has a bad eye and Evchen a swollen cheek, yet one is glad to survive the winter with nothing worse. Rich. at work, I play throughout the morning with Loldi, who cannot go into the garden.
At midday there arose between R. and myself the question of a change of faith; he said, “Your father would certainly not object to our relationship if, to make it possible, I were to become a Catholic.” At that I asked him whether in order to marry me he would have become a Catholic, if that had been necessary. He replied that this was a “devilish” question, he could not even conceive of it.
At first I was disconcerted; my immediate feeling was that I am giving everything up, religion and all else besides, in order to ally myself with him, but then I understood. A woman may and should sacrifice all for her beloved; a man, on the other hand, can and should have a point from which he neither shifts nor wavers.
In addition, as R. observes, the conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism is not the same as the other way around; a Protestant is required to make a formal confession of heresy.
This whole chapter did, however, bring me into a mood of seriousness; it is difficult to achieve all at once an insight which raises one above the painful realization of the difference between a man’s and a woman’s love; and since with me everything moves slowly, I spent just about the whole afternoon working on the matter.
Colonel Am Rhyn visited me; that always produces a curious situation. In the evening began on Alcibiades II.