Friday, December 8:
Preparations for R.’s departure. On top of it, continuing domestic discord; many things have spread and taken root through kindness. The moral of Frederick the Great should be applied in this respect. R. reads me his report; I write to R. in Munich, though he is still here! Disturbed, sad day; on top of it a dismal letter from Math. Maier; they seem to have lost all they possess. — Supper with the children. Then upstairs; R. says that everything will turn out all right. Fate will not forget its role—it has been good to us! As he goes off to bed he says that when he is in such moods folk songs always come into his mind—now it is “Red today, dead tomorrow.”