Thursday, December 25:
When I enter my room, I find the splendid garnet-red velvet costume which R., as I discover, has spent months having prepared! As I am gazing at it in emotion, there stands R. beside the portiere, scolding me for looking sad! . . . Dear scolding, cherished sulking! A banquet in the hall with our neighbors and the Jagers; R. toasts me just between ourselves, and silence accompanies our tears. Eva is present but very unwell. R. feels it bitterly in the evening that nobody proposed my health, but I think it was our mood of profundity which did not permit any such vulgar sound!
In the evening we are by ourselves, and very glad of it; R. reads the scene between Don Quixote and Sancho, to our enchantment - more, to our gay edification!