errenstein-Agstein. The shady side of the trip was
the sunny side; it burned as if they wanted tokay to grow on the
steamer, and the crowd of travelers was large; but, just imagine, not
one Englishman; it must be that they have not yet discovered Hungary.
For the rest, there were queer fellows enough, dirty and washed, of
all Oriental and Occidental nations. * * * By this time I am becoming
impatient as to Hildebrand's whereabouts; I am lying in the window,
half musing in the moonlight, half waiting for him as for a mistress,
for I long for a clean shirt. * * * If you were here for only a
moment, and could contemplate now the dull, silvery Danube, the dark
hills on a pale-red background, and the lights which are shining up
from Pesth below, Vienna would lose much in your estimation compared
to Buda-Pescht, as the Hungarian calls it. You see I am not only a
lover, but also an enthusiast, for nature. Now I shall soothe my
excited blood with a cup of tea, after Hildebrand has actually put in
an appearance, and shall then go to bed and dream of you, my love.
Last night I had only four hours of sleep, and the court here is
terribly matutinal; the young gentleman himself rises as early as five
o 'clock, so that I should be a bad courtier if I were to sleep much
longer. Therefore I bid you good-night from afar, with a side-glance
at a gigantic teapot and an enticing plate of cold jellied cuts,
tongue, as I see, among the rest. Where did I get that song that
occurs to me continually today--"_Over the blue mountain, over the
white sea-foam, come, thou beloved one, come to thy lonely home_"? I
don't know who must have sung that to me, some time in _auld lang
syne_. May God's angels keep you today as hitherto.

Your most faithful v.B.

The 24th.

After having slept very well, although on a wedge-shaped pillow, I bid
you good-morning, my heart. The whole panorama before me is bathed in
such a bright, burning sun that I cannot look out at all without being
blinded. Until I begin my calls I am sitting here breakfasting and
smoking all alone in a very spacious apartment--four rooms, all
thickly vaulted, two something like our dining-room in size, thick
walls as at Schoenhausen, gigantic nut-wood closets, blue silk
furnishings, a profusion of large spots on the floor, an ell in size,
which a more excited fancy than mine might take for blood, but which I
decidedly declare to be ink; an unconscionably awkward scribe must
have lodge