gant
general of cavalry, Prince Liechtenstein. You see, the painting was
rich in contrasts. Then we rode home by moonlight, escorted by
torches; and while I smoke my evening cigar I am writing to my
darling, and leaving the documents until tomorrow. * * * I have
listened today to the story of how this castle was stormed by the
insurgents three years ago, when the brave General Hentzi and the
entire garrison were cut down after a wonderfully heroic defence. The
black spots on my floor are in part burns, and where I am now writing
to you the shells then danced about, and the combat finally raged on
top of smoking _debris_. It was only put in order again a few weeks
ago, against the Emperor's arrival. Now it is very quiet and cozy up
here; I hear only the ticking of a clock and distant rolling of wheels
from below. For the second time from this place I bid you good-night
in the distance. May angels watch over you--a grenadier with a
bear-skin cap does that for me here; I see his bayonet two arm-lengths
away from me, projecting six inches above the windowsill, and
reflecting my light. He is standing on the terrace over the Danube,
and is, perhaps, thinking of his Nan, too.

Tomsjoenaes, August 16, '57.

_My Dearest,_--I make use again of the Sunday quiet to give you a sign
of life, though I do not know what day there will be a chance to send
it out of this wilderness to the mail. I rode about seventy miles
without break, through the desolate forest, in order to reach here,
and before me lie more than a hundred miles more before one gets to
provinces of arable land. Not a city, not a village, far and wide;
only single settlers in wide huts, with a little barley and potatoes,
who find rods of land to till, here and there between dead trees,
pieces of rock, and bushes. Picture to yourself about five hundred
square miles of such desolate country as that around Viartlum, high
heather, alternating with short grass and bog, and with birches,
junipers pines, beeches, oaks, alders, here impenetrably thick, there
thin and barren of foliage, the whole strewn with innumerable stones
of all sizes up to that of a house, smelling of wild rosemary and
rosin, at intervals wonderfully shaped lakes surrounded by woods and
hills of the heath, then you have the land of Smaa, where I am just
now. Really, the land of my dreams, inaccessible to despatches,
colleagues, and Reitzenstein, but unfortunately, to you as well. I
should like ever so