down to
write, gazing on the white blank pages, it seemed to me as if I were
looking into a camera obscura. All the scenes which had greeted me on
my journey appeared so clearly and vividly before me and chased each
other as in a feverish dream till my eyes filled with tears.

More than once during the journey I had felt the tears ready to start,
but I was not alone, and I had no desire to be pitied, and questioned
by the strangers who occupied the carriage with me.

Here it is different--I am alone and free. Already I have learnt by
experience that solitude only can bring freedom. Why am I, even now,
ashamed to weep? have I not a full right to do so? Is it not sad that
my first glimpse of the beauties of this world should also be my last?

Truly it were better that I closed this book, and left the blank pages
as they are. With what can I fill them but with useless complaints. I
had imagined that it would be pleasant and consoling to write down
every thought that crossed my mind, every event in this my last winter.
I wished to bequeath this book to my dear brother, my little Ernest,
who is as yet too young to understand life and death; but some day or
other he would prize it, when, asking about his sister, he found no one
to answer him. Now, however, I see it was a foolish thought. How could
I wish to live in the memory of those dear to me, in the image of my
last illness. Better that he should forget me, than have impressed on
his mind these pale features which frighten even me when I look at them
in the mirror.

Evening.--
--The atmosphere heavy and lowering.--

For several hours I have been sitting at the open casement. From thence
one can overlook the beautiful country of the Adige. And far beyond the
walls of the town and the wide-spreading[3] poplars which border the
stone-dike beside the rushing Passer, the view extends over the lower
pasture-lands, intersected with a hundred rivulets, where the cattle
feed, to the distant chain of mountains which bounds the horizon. The
air was so still that I could hear the voices of the promenaders on the
_Wassermauer_[4]--or was it a fancy of mine?

The children of my landlord, a tailor, peeped in curiously through the
door till I at last gave them the remainder of the chocolate in my
travelling bag. How joyfully they ran down with it to their mother!
Soon I became more calm and cheerful. I found that I had been