Tuesday, December 17:
Christmas shopping in wretched weather; saw our house with the roof in place. We discuss Fidi's future and hope he will cherish and respect this inheritance and, by making do with little, live a free man.
Eva's condition worries us; I put her to bed and call the doctor, who, however, sees no reason for concern.
In the evening R. reads me Peter Schlemihl, and out of that arises a dispute between us. I find this sort of fantasy repugnant, as concerns both the idea and the manner of execution, except for the conclusion. R. defends the idea of the loss of one's shadow, isolation from the world, but condemns the broad execution. He maintains that it is my French spirit which prevents my appreciating it; I then ask how it is possible for me to like the fantastic elements in Kleist, in The Arabian Nights, and the occasional fairy tales by Hoffmann, yet not this, which the French in particular place very high and have even imitated? We both of us get very heated, until we have at last to burst out laughing at our literary zeal.