Monday, January 2:
Richter has had a letter from his friend Servais, begging him in my father's name to go immediately to Pest, where plans to appoint him are progressing well; I advise Richter to approach my father directly for enlightenment.
This notification saddens us further: "What a life this is, in which everything has to be sacrificed for bread!" R. says mournfully. He goes into town; I stay at home and write letters to Meysenbug, Krockow, and Serov. Fidi pays his first visit to Countess B., but her large figure dressed in mourning frightens him.
In the evening finished reading Hoffmann's Klein Zaches without much enjoyment apart from the originality of the main character. We are reminded of how often Bulow used to exclaim with a smile, "Little Zaches, known as Zinnober," when, for example, the raising of the musicians' salaries, effected by us, brought our good Baron Perfall a serenade, and when the lowering of the orchestra pit, demanded by R., was praised in all the newspapers as a good idea of Perfall's.
In Torgau, as Prof. Nietzsche tells us, the soldiers sing "Gottern, mir Knechte knete ich mir" from Die Walküre.