Ten o’clock! There you are perhaps at this very minute standing on the platform and giving your address, which is not very long. So, as far as I can follow it, I am taking part in the Congress. The newspaper reports will not give any very detailed account of it.
Yesterday Chimani[[47]] was here. He discovered some improvement, but there is still inflammation; therefore strict orders not to get out of bed.
I received your telegram yesterday evening about half past eight. I was beginning to be a trifle uneasy when no word came. My reply, which I intrusted to the messenger, you will not be likely to get until to-day.
It is a beautiful summer’s day—and here I am in bed! Have such a longing to get out.
Nothing interesting in the mail. Among other things a crazy letter to you from a crazy photographer in Graz. Then came a letter of twenty quarto pages from Linz and a little book which the author published ten years ago through Schabelitz. Of course I do not send you this stuff.
Thank the Hex [Countess Pötting] for her card and sisterly greeting. Kisses on thy Löwos mouth from
Thy Own
How the poor man would have enjoyed those days at Monaco! The place was all a glory of spring splendor. We had seen the Riviera before, but not at a time of such luxurious profusion of flowers.
A hall in the new building destined for the Oceanographic Museum had been cleared for the proceedings of the Congress. All the speeches and debates had a constant accompaniment of distant hammering. In the immediate neighborhood the work was at a standstill during the hours of session, but not very far away the pounding and sawing and nailing went steadily on. This seemed to disturb some of the orators; yet one of them found in it a welcome occasion for bringing out in a beautiful picture how the work in the name of which we were there assembled was also an edifice, already designed but still unfinished,—an edifice which, like this, would also arise in usefulness and beauty to the honor of the builders and to the advantage of mankind.
After the opening session, which Prince Albert had attended, all the participants stood about in the open space before the entrance to exchange greetings and to enjoy the scenes of recognition which are repeated at every Congress: “Ah, it’s you! This is fine!”