Wednesday, November 29:
Letter from Marie Muchanoff, strongly advising acceptance of the Baden councilors’ proposals. Long discussion with R. about all the difficulties connected with the establishment of our future home—is life worth all this trouble? — R. embraces me and says I should not imagine that his love for me was not the highest and deepest worry of all! — I reply to Marie M. and send Herr Pecht an autograph by R. — R. goes for a walk, I stay at home with the children. On his return R. says to me, “Prometheus’s words ‘I took knowledge away from Man’ came to my mind and gave me a profound insight; knowledge, seeing ahead, is in fact a divine attribute, and Man with this divine attribute is a piteous object, he is like Brahma before Maya spread before him the veil of ignorance, of deception; the divine privilege is the saddest thing of all.” — We are now living our lives in theory, surrounded by a gray fog. In the evening R. pastes his Auber together, making a brochure of it; this reminds us of the Christmas here for which we made the pictures together.