Monday, December 16:
R. did not sleep badly, but he had an ugly dream in the early morning: I had propped a clasp knife on my nose and was in a sarcastic mood. He does not look too tired. The Retrospect has inevitably left a mood of heaviness behind. "What the story tells," R. exclaims, "one can see from our leaders, the Emperor, the princes, Bismarck." Yesterday evening he said, "The princes are entirely to blame." Of Bismarck he says, "A bad man."
I observe that C. Frantz was not far wrong with his "Pomeranian Junker." "He certainly was not. - What does a Junker of that sort know about Germany?"
When R. laughed about his piano playing yesterday, I said to him, "And yet now I can really listen to nobody except you." He laughs and says, "It's my magic," and points to his leathery thumb (which is a bit rough). The falling snow, silent, thick, and pure, invites one to seek a still, cozy refuge. Oh, gleaming white peace, protect and warm my poor heart, consumed by love, full of sprouting worries and fears, that death may appear to it like springtime! ...
After lunch, at which R. has little appetite, I ask him how he feels. "Bursting with health," he answers. He is still going out of doors twice a day. In the evening a dance at Wahnfried! Ten young officers and ten girls. R. orders the polonaise to be danced from the hall into his salon, where he plays for it, while Herr Kellermann, not noticing, continues playing in my room. The rest of the music is played by "Memel and Schwemel," as R. calls our two fiddlers.
He sticks photographs in my album, until I ask him to do no more, but to wait until the collection is complete. Looking at A. Muller's house, which has just been drawn for me and in which he lived on the fifth floor, he says, "On my first Sunday I gazed out of the window and heard a child say, 'D' Kirch isch us' ('Church is over'), and I thought to myself, 'Look out, things will start happening.'"