Friday, August 18:
Our Sergeant Nolte, returned from the war, writes to R. that he has given up his university studies and wants to become a musician. R. emphatically advises him against it, telling him that musicians are born, not made; we intend to educate our Fidi as a surgeon, etc.
We plan an outing to Stanz, but have to give it up on account of a thunderstorm. Games with the children in the salon; in the evening a visit from Countess Ugarte, who tells me that in my outward appearance I look like George Sand’s heroines!
R. thinks about composing music without joy, indeed with a kind of repulsion, which pains me deeply.