Thursday, September 26:
Still working amid the ancestral lumber, and still without help; the people from the Sonne come whining about our eating in the Reichsadler, but we are keeping to it for today. R., however, is so unwell that we decide not to go to a restaurant tomorrow at any price. I go again to see the woman who looks after domestic help, and today there was a faint gleam of hope.
The children are well; if R. were not so indisposed, he again had a wretched night, I could be happy and cheerful in spite of all the difficulties, but now worry is added to my burden!
He told me that he had had all sorts of “vain dreams” during the night, among them that we were out driving with the King of Bavaria, who had paid us homage in the most ostentatious way; then he had been in Paris, walking arm in arm with Meyerbeer, and M. had smoothed for him the paths to fame; but then a regularly recurring dream, that a money order due him had not been paid and he was unable to pay his rent.
We talk about these regularly recurring dreams he has; one constant one concerns a friendship with the late King of Prussia: the King overwhelms R. with tokens of love, is so moved that he always has tears in his eyes when he speaks, etc.!