Schoenhausen, March 14, 1847.

_Jeanne la Mechante!_--What is the meaning of this? A whole week has
passed since I heard a syllable from you, and today I seized the
confused mass of letters with genuine impatience--seven official
communications, a bill, two invitations, one of which is for a theatre
and ball at Greifenberg, but not a trace of Zuckers (the Reinfeld
post-office) and "Hochwohlgeboren." [14] I could not believe my eyes, and
had to look through the letters twice; then I set my hat quite on my
right ear and took a two hours' walk on the highway in the rain, without
a cigar, assailed by the most conflicting sentiments--"a prey to violent
emotions," as we are accustomed to say in romances. I have got used to
receiving my two letters from you regularly every week, and when once we
have acquired the habit of a thing we look upon that as our well-won
right, an injury to which enrages us. If I only knew against whom I
should direct my wrath--against Boege, against the post-office, or
against you, _la chatte la plus noire_, inside and out. And why don't
you write? Are you so exhausted with the effort you made in sending two
letters at a time on Friday of last week? Ten days have gone by since
then--time enough to rest yourself. Or do you want to let me writhe,
while you feast your eyes on my anxiety, tigress! after speaking to me
in your last letters about scarlet and nervous fevers, and after I had
laid such stress on my maxim of never believing in anything bad before
it forces itself upon me as incontestable? We adhere firmly to our
maxims only so long as they are not put to the test; when that happens
we throw them away, as the peasant did his slippers, and run off on the
legs that nature gave us. If you have the disposition to try the virtue
of my maxims, then I shall never again give utterance to any of them,
lest I be caught lying; for the fact is that I do really feel somewhat
anxious. With fevers in Reddis, to let ten days pass without writing is
very horrible of you, if you are well. Or can it be that you did not
receive on Thursday, as usual, my letter that I mailed on Tuesday in
Magdeburg, and, in your indignation at this, resolved not to write to me
for another week? If _that_ is the state of affairs, I can't yet make up
my mind whether to scold or laugh at you. The worst of it now is that,
unless some lucky chance brings a letter from you directly to Stolp, I
shall not have any before Thursday, for, as I