Sunday, September 25th, 1853.
P.S.—It would be the simplest thing if you could go to Berne yourself; but this is not absolutely necessary, and it will be sufficient if you write to his Excellency, enclosing your passport and asking him to return it to you at Zurich by October 3rd. Perhaps it would be better if you were to write, so that he may forward your letter to Paris. Consider this, and do not forget that we are to meet at Basle on the evening of October 6th.
132.
Best thanks, my dearest Franz. I have just written to M. Fenelon, enclosing my passport once more. Candidly speaking, the matter suddenly begins to annoy me very much, and I do not expect a good result. My wish quite coincides with your plan. I fully anticipated that Basle could not be avoided altogether; it is adapted for a meeting with the friends who have come to Carlsruhe. The excursion to Paris after that concerns us two alone; so our thoughts have once more been the same.
As to the rest, I am longing to get to work at last. My ordinary life is unbearable unless I, so to speak, devour myself. Moreover, I cannot keep my peace, as I particularly want to do, unless I devote myself to this music.
After your visit, everything came to nothing with me this summer; no other hope was fulfilled, all went wrong, and—well, we shall see whether I get this passport.
The day after tomorrow week, we shall meet! (I wish it were the day after tomorrow.) Will you, or shall I, engage the hotel? Let it be the "Drei Konige;" they have nice rooms there and a balcony looking over the Rhine; let us engage some of those. You are once more in the middle of your exertions, and I must almost envy you; I at least realize by such exertions alone that I am alive. Rest is death to me; and if sometimes I go in quest of it,—I mean that other rest; the beautiful, the joyful,—I feel that in reality it must be nothing but death, but real, noble, perfect death, not this death in life which I die from day to day.
Adieu, dearest friend.
What a blessing that you have no double!
Au revoir soon! Your