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Freiberg, August 17, 1872
Dear Berganza,
Your last letter showed me how wrong I have been to accuse you of neglecting your friend, but I hope you will forgive my impatience,
which cannot get used to the idea that news from one takes five days to reach the other. Let me say in advance that I shall not make mention of my travels in our correspondence; I have more important matters to relate. All the same, I am keeping a travel diary just for you from which you will gather more than you really ought to know. Your letter gave me great pleasure, on the one hand because it tells me that you have been converted to ice cream, and on the other because I am delighted at your brilliant championship of the S.S.S. The sample of Turkish money, which you meant to enclose, was not there. I notice that you have only let me have a selection from your experiences, but you have kept your thoughts to yourself. I hope that your telling of them will more than make up for this. My position here would be splendid were I a different sort of person; I was given a warm reception, have been on pleasant outings, and have been well entertained. However, I tend toward some slight dissatisfaction; our evening saunters and nocturnal visits have so accustomed me to communication that I find it hard to do without it now. That Rosanes1 is a poor listener is something you do not need to be told. He is, incidentally, becoming very popular among the young people here, whom I shall describe to you anon, and has many of our Mascial's characteristics, save his vitality. It is my need for communication which is causing me to write the diary you will be reading in the first week of the school year. It contains little you will find incomprehensible; yesterday and the day before I wrote so frankly in my annoyance as I would never have thought myself capable of. I shall try to be just as frank now, in the confident belief that no one else will catch a glimpse of this letter. I shall try to make my confessions easi