Monday, April 12:
Woke up early from a nice dream, in which R. sang to me the theme he recently played for me, “Sängst du mir,” and asked me to sing with it the second theme from the love scene between Siegfried and Brünnhilde, “’s ist mir ein und eigen,” which I did.
Worked with the children in the morning and afternoon, and about six o’clock with them into town, where R. caught up with us. He says that from afar we look like a walking cornfield, the children being poppies and cornflowers, I the field. I asked him what he was. “The happy husbandman, my one and only,” he says.
On the journey home we meet the convicts again, whose faces, in spite of their friendliness to us, frighten us; there is no hope in them. It is like a predestined leaning toward badness, and no compassionate excuses or well-meaning, reasonable considerations can prevail against the effect of such a physiognomy.
From the post office R. brings back two letters, one of them from Champfleury. In the evening began Protagoras, in spite of R.’s weariness, which comes from the games he played unceasingly with the children during our walk.
He also worked in the morning, for the first time since the interruption.