This afternoon we start. I am in a fever of anticipation. How delightful! I seem to have come to the turning-point of my existence. Something wonderful is surely going to happen.
Meanwhile, I take my leave of my little book,--I shall have no time to write in it while we are away.
July 30.
Here we are back again in the old nest! Nothing either wonderful or even extraordinary happened upon the journey; on the contrary, everything was quite commonplace. I did not meet the Russian prince, but I have brought home with me a conviction of the beauty and delights of the world, and the certainty that, if fate would only grant me the opportunity, I could play a most brilliant part in it. But my destiny has nothing of the kind to offer.
I am restless and discontented, and I have great trouble in concealing my mood from my uncle and aunt. I am likewise disgusted with my ingratitude. I know that the expenses of our trip weighed heavily upon my uncle. He has bought himself no new horses, although the old ones are lame in all four legs; and my aunt has given up her pilgrimage to Bayreuth, that I might go to the baths. She expected so much for me from this trip, and now----
Still, prosaic and commonplace as it all was, I will put it down here conscientiously in detail. Various pleasant little circumstances may recur to me as I write which have escaped me in my general discontent that has tinged everything.
Our few days in Vienna were the pleasantest part of the entire trip, little as I liked the city at first.
We arrived at ten in the evening, rather exhausted by the heat, and of course we expected to see Harry at the railroad-station, my uncle having advised him of our arrival. But in vain did we peer in every direction, or rather in vain did Aunt Rosamunda thus peer (for I did nothing of the kind); there was no Harry to be seen.
While my aunt loudly expressed her wonder at his non-appearance, I never uttered a word, but was secretly all the more vexed at what seemed to me Harry's laziness and want of consideration. Of course, I attributed his absence to the fact that a young man who passed his time in flying from one fête to another in the world (which I was not to know) could hardly be very anxious to meet a couple of relatives from the country. Perhaps he had come to be just like Heda, and I shrugged my shoulders indifferently at the thought. What could it possibly matter to me? Meanwhile, my aunt had given our luggage-tickets to a porter and got with me into an open carriage, where we quietly and wearily awaited our trunks.
Around us the lights flickered in the warm, dim, night air, which was almost as close as an in-door atmosphere, and smelled most unpleasantly of dust, dried leaves, and all sorts of exhalations. On every hand crowded houses of indescribable clumsiness and ugliness; I was depressed by the mere eight of them, and suddenly experienced the most painful sensation of shrivelling up. The deafening noise and bustle were in harmony with the houses: I never had heard anything like it. Everybody jostled everybody else, all were in a hurry, and no one paid the slightest regard to anybody. It seemed as if they were one and all bound for some great entertainment and feared to be too late.