Friday, August 18:
Good morning, naughty child!
What a nasty letter you wrote me yesterday! I am discovering more and more how naughty it is. What you are saying to me in it is really the same as that you have been wrong to love me so much, and, against that, to treat your father who alone loved you, badly. That’s nice! And this you find goes quite easily, especially when you are away from me and with your father! And now poor M.M. has to come in for it again: God, the things I’m not going to get up to with her — yes! How I’m supposed to be keeping company with her — what loving speeches I lavish! etc. That’s very nice, that is, and looks exactly as if you’re aiming for a ‘break’ with me. Well, just you get on with it! Well, I never! —
And all this in the lap of joy and bliss while I, sick and sad, am wasting away here in clouds of mist! — Very nice! — That shall be a lesson to me, — and ‘you will have the surprise of your life!’ Hope there’ll very soon be a sensible letter, otherwise it’s all over! —
For all that, dear wife, I’ve slept well! God, how much sleep I would need to rid myself of the fatigues of my long waking! — Must inquire closely one day of some clever doctor what I have to do to preserve myself in a state to finish all that I have to do in this world. —