seldom seen him so tender. Very clever people have a
curious manner of viewing the world. In the evening (I hope you did
not write so late) I drank your health in the foaming grape-juice of
Sillery, in company with half a dozen Silesian counts, Schaffgotsch
and others, at the Hotel de Rome, and convinced myself Friday morning
that the ice on the Elbe was still strong enough to bear my horse's
weight, and that, so far as the freshet was concerned, I might today
be still at your blue or black side[4] if other current official
engagements had not also claimed my presence. Snow has fallen very
industriously all day long, and the country is white once more,
without severe cold. When I arrived it was all free from snow on this
side of Brandenburg; the air was warm and the people were ploughing;
it was as though I had traveled out of winter into opening spring, and
yet within me the short springtime had changed to winter, for the
nearer I came to Schoenhausen the more oppressive I found the thought
of entering upon the old loneliness once more, for who knows how long.
Pictures of a wasted past arose in me as though they would banish me
from you. I was on the verge of tears, as when, after a school
vacation, I caught sight of Berlin's towers from the train.

The comparison of my situation with that in which I was on the 10th,
when I traveled the same line in the opposite direction; the
conviction that my solitude was, strictly speaking, voluntary, and
that I could at any time, albeit through a resolve smacking of
insubordination and a forty hours' journey, put an end to it, made me
see once more that my heart is ungrateful, dismayed, and resentful;
for soon I said to myself, in the comfortable fashion of the accepted
lover, that even here I am no longer lonely, and I was happy in the
consciousness of being loved by you, my angel, and, in return for the
gift of your love, of belonging to you, not merely in vassalage, but
with my inmost heart. On reaching the village I felt more distinctly
than ever before what a beautiful thing it is to have a home--a home
with which one is identified by birth, memory, and love. The sun shone
bright on the stately houses of the villagers, and their portly
inmates in long coats and the gayly dressed women in short skirts gave
me a much more friendly greeting than usual; on every face there
seemed to be a wish for my happiness, which I invariably converted
into thanks to you. Gray-haired Bellin's