Wednesday, January 25:
But R. had another restless night. However, when I return from the new house around lunchtime with Boni and Count Tasca, I see him on the Corso, going in search of cigarettes and looking so well that it is hard to believe he had a bad night. Lunch is spent on reports and proposals regarding the move, also reports about Venice. Since I am somewhat tired in the evening, I let R. go for a walk by himself; he tells me that he saw the street laborer again and that the latter greeted him with a smile. He would like to make a donation to the man. He sits down beside me when he returns from his walk and complains of the constant unrest; to calm him down, I tell him that everything between us is so nicely arranged. He: “Yes, for leaving the world, but not for gaining a foothold in it.” — In the evening Prof. Moleschott visits us, he recalls having spoken French with me in Zurich more than 20 years ago and asks me whether I have turned into a German. After that a singer, an Englishwoman, from whom R. takes flight, and in the evening friend Rub., who plays us his “Picture,” to our great satisfaction. Then whist, and finally some words between R. and me about Renan, whom R. declares must be a Jew, since the whole thing is a glorification of Judaism. “Nobody has ever written such popular songs as Beeth.!” he exclaims merrily today! — The length of the evenings and nights makes him feel melancholy and arouses in him reflections on the misery of human existence and the many things it depends on. He says that every time the sun disappears behind Monte Gragio his heart feels heavy. Herr Neumann requests permission to call his enterprise the Wagner Theater. R. grants it. [Added two pages later but referred back to this point: “R. tells Rub. two jokes he made yesterday. To a shell collector: ‘Dans la mer on trouve à une certaine profondeur des coquillages, plus loin des coquilles, et enfin des coquins’ [‘In the sea one finds at a certain depth mussels, farther out, other shells, and finally rogues’]. And about the B. Blatter: ‘Strange that its circulation is not increasing, when Porges writes for it so rarely!’ ”]