Friday, April 14:
We arrive in Naples at 8 o'clock, in somewhat gray weather; it is to Pellegrino that R. gives the honor of a salute, since he can raise no great interest in the cliffs of Capri. Naples itself, however, as unique as ever! Dr. Schramm to greet us; parting from our friend and son [Gravina], made very moving by R.'s words. "Soyez un homme, et vous nous aurez pour amis" ["Be a man and you will have us as your friends"], he says, and expresses his appreciation of his good and honorable character-and what lies in its power to achieve-in such a wonderful way that all pain is dissolved in blissful melancholy. We leave the city, which R. declares to be the loveliest of all (we had once more enjoyed the drive down the Posillipo), and now hasten away. The countryside beyond the Naples coast does not interest R. very much (I am fascinated by the sunset over Monte Cassino).
Saturday, April 15:
Tuscany enchants us with its cultivation; when we come to Lombardy, R. explains to me the origin of alluvial ground. "That took quite a time," he says jokingly, whereupon I: "It must surely have happened before the calendar was invented"; he looks at me with a twinkle in his eye, then earnestly, and says, "I have you, and you are all I could or should have, everything else is a masquerade." Yesterday, as I was going to sleep, I heard soft words of blessing being spoken over me and felt his dear hand, grasped it as he said quietly, "Now we can say that we are happy." And when all is silent, all that exists is a prayer from me to him, a blessing from him to me-yet how many things come between us! In Naples an unpleasant business letter (Batz), during the journey inquisitive people, and how much else! In Mestre he is vexed by a completely inexplicable delay, also by the fact that it is raining when we arrive in Venice, whereas in Naples we had the brightest weather, as always. R. very tired, can scarcely eat a thing, goes straight off to bed, and, as I am writing these lines, sends me a message to say that he is feeling all right again, whereupon I go upstairs to greet him. Soon afterward he comes to join me, and we chat for a while. (In the train he thought of Beethoven's quartets and told me that they are the equivalent of Faust, playing with the theme in a completely free way, but in music this is more transfigured, a playing with sound!) Then he considered the masculine and feminine names of the various rivers, believing first of all that the German rivers were masculine, Donau [Danube], etc., being Slavonic, but he satisfied himself that this view is untenable.