Some letters; governess affairs, and a very melancholy one from our friend Nietzsche, who is tormenting himself. R. exclaims, “He should either marry or write an opera, though doubt less the latter would be such that it would never get produced, and so would not bring him into contact with life.” —
I go to the house and then pay some calls; R. takes his first bath in the house and feels so good in it and so well after it that he comes home a different man.
A cheerful lunch in consequence, happy enjoyment of what we are and have in each other! In the afternoon to the house, arrival of the “Kauders[1],” the children’s laughter, much merriment. In the evening I read R. poor Frau v. M[2]’s letter, which brings the conversation to my father.
Then we read some of the Indian proverbs, feeling ever more deeply this curious link between the highest world-renouncing wisdom and the acutest perception of life.
[1] „Kauders“: The Duke’s chickens.
[2] Olga von Meyendorff (see entry of March, 12)