Work gets continually worse; and here, where I can do nothing in the morning after the bath, I do not know when to get time for any thing. Since my arrival on the 2d, in a storm with hailstones as hard as bullets, I have just been able, in magnificent weather, for the first time, to go out by rule. On my return, I wish to employ the half-hour at my disposal in writing to you. A—— was, however, here immediately, with plans and telegrams, and I must be off to the King. I am, however, by the blessing of God, quite well. I have had four baths, but shall hardly get more than eleven, as the King sets out on the 15th. Since yesterday I have been very comfortably lodged, as a large cool corner room, with a magnificent landscape, was vacant; until then I had-been living in a sun-blinding oven, at least by day. The nights are pleasantly fresh. The King probably goes hence to Vienna in short day journeys, by way of Ischl, and thence to Baden. Whether I shall accompany him to the latter place is uncertain. I still hope to get away for a few days to my quiet Pomerania; but what is the use of plans?—something always comes in between. I have not a gun with me, and every day there is a chamois-hunt; certainly, I have also had no time. To-day seventeen were shot, and I was not there; it is a life like that of Leporello:—
“Neither rest by day or night,
Naught to make my comfort right.”
7th August.
Just now I had the whole room full of ladies, flying from the rain, which relieves guard with the sun to-day. Fr—— from R——, with, two cousins, Frau von P——, a Norwegian. I have long since heard no feminine voice, not since Carlsbad. Farewell!
Schönbrunn, 20th August, 1864.
It is too strange that I should be living in the rooms on the ground-floor, abutting on the private reserved garden where, very nearly seventeen years ago, we intruded in the moonlight. If I look over my right shoulder I can see, through a glass door, the dark beech clump-hedge by which we wandered, in the secret delight of the forbidden, up to the glass window behind which I am living. It was then inhabited by the Empress, and I now repeat our walk by moonlight at greater ease. The day before the day before yesterday I left Gastein; slept at Radstedt. The day before yesterday went, in misty weather, to Aussee—a charmingly situated place; a beautiful lake, half Traunsee and half Königssee; at sunset reached the Hallstädtersee; thence, by boat, in the night, to Hallstadt, where we slept. Next morning was pleasant and sunny; at noon we reached the King at Ischl, and so, with His Majesty, over the Traunsee to Gmunden, where we passed the night, and I thought a great deal of L——, H——, and B——, and all those times. To-day, by steamer, hither, arriving about six, passing two hours with R——, after convincing myself that —— is one of the most beautiful women, of whom all pictures give a false idea. We stay here three days; what follows, whether Baden or Pomerania, I cam not yet foresee. I am now heartily tired, so wish you and all of ours good-night.
