you here, my heart, and with Salzburg and Meran in prospect; I have grown terribly old since then. * * * It is very cruel that we must spend such a long period of our brief life apart; that time is lost, then, and cannot be brought back. God alone knows why He allows others to remain together who are quite at their ease when apart; like an aged friend of mine, who travelled with me as far as Dresden, had to sit in the same compartment with his wife all the time, and could not smoke; and we must always correspond at a great distance. We shall make up for it all, and love each other a great deal more when we are again together; if only we keep well! Then I shall not murmur. Today I had the great pleasure of receiving, via Berlin, your letter of last Thursday; that is the second one since I left Frankfort; surely none is lost? I was very happy and thankful that all of you are well. * * * As soon as I find myself once more on the old, tiresome Thuringian railroad I shall be out of myself, and still more so when I catch a glimpse of our light from Bockenheim; I must travel about nine hundred miles thither, not including two hundred and fifty miles from Pesth back to this place. How gladly I shall undertake them, once I am seated in the train! I shall probably abandon my trip by way of Munich; from this place to M. is a post-trip of fifty hours; by water still longer; and I shall have to render a verbal report in Berlin, anyway. About politics I can, fortunately, write nothing; for, even if the English courier who takes this to Berlin is a safeguard against our post-office, the Taxis scoundrels will, nevertheless, get hold of it.
Be sure to write me detailed information as to your personal condition. Greet mother, our relations, if they are still there, Leontine, the children, Stolberg, Wentzel, and all the rest. Farewell my angel. God preserve you.
v. B.
Your most faithful
