Thursday, November 30:
Domestic trials and tribulations arising out of the Bassenheim affair; sorrowfully I ask myself during the night whether I have really done all I can for the children, whether I could not have spared them certain contacts, whether the influence has not been bad; I review my situation, feel I have done the only possible thing, yet still reproach myself. To R., who notices my preoccupation in the morning, I tell a part of my worries, and he comforts and encourages me, as always. May God give us His blessing, we have many difficulties to bear and to overcome, but if love does not falter, the strength will also remain. — Count Gergente, a Bourbon, has committed suicide here, but it is being hushed up so that he can be buried in consecrated ground. — I am very touched when Loulou tells me that last night in a dream she saw me finely dressed and dancing—with Herr Spiegel! She woke up laughing. This must have coincided with the moment when, thinking of the children, their dispositions, their development and future, I was bitterly weeping. R. walks into town, I accompany him. R. in very good spirits at lunch. In the evening a remark by Herr Spiegel brings R. to the subject of the Germans; he becomes very lively, indeed emphatic, and to our great astonishment our copyist is much affected by his outburst and says he can now see how much W. loves Germany when he can grow so violently heated about the shortcomings and the wretched social conditions of the nation. With ice-cold fingers he presses the hands of R., who feels quite moved. — In the evening Schopenhauer; we feel uplifted by it—“a golden book,” says R. With the words “We are after all happy,” we part.