Wednesday, January 22:
R. got up once during the night but did not have to take refuge in reading. A nice letter to him from the King. He works, but at lunch he complains of a stiff neck - his walk yesterday did him no good. Even when he is well I am never quite free of worry, but now any occupation is a strain on me - oh, this mortal life! . . . Ought one to envy the less favored? . . . R. is reading G. Keller’s “Hadlaub” (in the first volume); yesterday he looked up the Minnesinger poem quoted in it, and greeted me with “Augentrost,” also telling me about the bitten hand. When I tell him that I have written to Forges, as he asked me, instructing him in what he has to do - though I doubt whether it will do any good - R. says, “You are right; when Jews go along with us, they turn stupid; they’re clever only when they are against us.”
In the evening I read to him “Der Narr auf Manegg” and the beginning of “Der Landvogt von Greifensee”; the latter story gives us great pleasure, particularly “Hanswurstel” and the Tyrolean Marianne. But R.’s indisposition weighs on my mind like a gray sky, and I find no salvation except in prayer, summoning up all my faith in my good star!