Monday, 10 December 1877

Things are going very badly. Marcuard came to ask after him. The whole household is in tears. I am at my studio, where I read in a Swiss newspaper that the Italian government was to restore part of their estates to the Bourbons of Naples. That interests me all the same.
If Grand-papa were to die, the introduction would be put off to the Greek Calends... I am detestable to think of such things at such a moment, but it is better than weeping like Georges because he was not left enough in the will. If my mother were dying and I were anxious about the inheritance and weeping because she was paralysed and unable to write, I should not even dare to embrace her as Georges does at every moment — I should weep for my money and fume and not conceal it, but I should not dare approach her. It is not that thinking of one's welfare is shameful, but these two things do not go at all together... Well! I prefer to believe he weeps and embraces his father with... good intentions.
I had such a dream that some affront must be coming to me...

Notes

"The Greek Calends" — since the Greeks had no Calends (that was a Roman division of the calendar), the phrase means "never" or "indefinitely."