Monday, July 10:
My lawyer sends me 1,000 francs and uses the opportunity to pour abuse on the Commune. As we are looking at the very ugly pictures of the entry of the troops into Berlin, R. says, “Nobody thinks what effect this open contact between men and women can produce; all this sitting side by side in the theater stalls, this wearing in the street of clothes intended only for indoors, giving every man the right to gaze through his monocle on any woman, while the women also are quite willing to make an exhibition of themselves in the street; nobody seems to realize what a coarsening of the senses there has been.”
Peter Menzig comes at noon; though he is our only witness, the magistrate has not summoned him. A court official in the town told Jakob that the matter had been delayed far too long. That is very nice, too. Now Jakob brings along Peter M. in triumph and tells me, “He’ll swear to anything he is asked.” “But, Jakob,” say I, “he has only to tell the truth.” “Hm,” Jakob observes, “one must put an end to it somehow.” Peter Menzig turns out to be a chatterer, and R. is now expecting us to be accused of bribing a witness. What use our lawyer is to us is not at all clear.
To town with R.; he comes home in an agitated mood, complains of making poor use of his time, then suddenly goes upstairs and starts to improvise. His work is making him very tense. In the evening, Henry VIII.