The days pass in constant attempts to maintain our servant, whom we support along with his wife and children, asking only the proper decency in return.
On Sunday, he forgets himself so badly toward R. that he is immediately dismissed from service. One of the saddest experiences of the wickedness of human nature; we have fed, given gifts to, and generously paid seven people, and in return, we received mockery and insolence!
The machinist Brandt was here, meeting about the gas. The King sends thanks for the proposed performance of the fragments, states that he is not well. R. writes to Father to thank him.
Various kind gifts arrive, including Aeschylus as a Religious Lyricist and Saint Ulrich, Bishop.[1] Amid the sad troubles with the servants (we learn of disloyalty from all sides), the news of the death of Sister Clara comes.[2] I am so caught up in checking the laundry that I can hardly hear it, and R. is also so busy that he does not give himself over to grief. Only when he goes to bed in the evening does he say how gifted she had been, how tragic her existence was, and how, among all his relatives, she had been the dearest to him.
[1] Saint Ulrich of Augsburg (923/24-973), Bishop of Augsburg, defended the city against the Hungarians in 955, canonized in 993; “Geschichte und Kult des heil. Ulrich” by J. Koch was published in 1875.
[2] RW’s sister Klara Wolfram died on March 17 in Leipzig.
Revised English translation by Jo Cousins.