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Aussee, July 30, 1898
Vienna
IX., Berggasse 19
Dear Wilhelm,
You definitely are far too good company for me. I do not deserve to be given a glimpse of these perspectives. Even though it has been less than a week since I was enchanted by the Kepler of biology, I have already turned into a complete peasant. Unfortunately there are no mushrooms yet, as I convinced myself on a four-and-a-half-hour walk through the woods of the Salzberg; instead, it has been
raining and we are freezing — to our heart's content! All science is — I almost wrote “was” — infinitely remote from me, my own of course the farthest. With the ability to turn everything into something desirable — and I still possess remnants of this faculty — I tell myself, this is good and proves the elasticity of my nature. (I can scarcely write, it is so cold.)
Robert is quite right; he suspects that money is a means of unchaining slaves; that one obtains freedom in exchange for money, as one otherwise sacrifices freedom for money.
Couldn't you by now calculate when old Bismarck must die?
Two little trips are dawning for me: one from Landeck via the Engadine to Chiavenna, the other for a stay in Ragusa. The first one, soon; the second one, in September; the first one, with Minna; the second one, with Martha. The first trip really was inspired by your remark that you know very well the land where Jürg Jenatsch takes place. But I no longer remember which it is. Graubünden?1 Certainly not the Engadine. So a certain displacement has occurred; if in leafing through the guide to Switzerland I find the right names, I shall change the route and undo the displacement. I am thinking of leaving on Thursday.
Do not let yourself be deterred from writing to me about the ellipses,2 although at present I am passing through such an unreasonable segment [of ellipses] of my own. For each should give what he has, without consideration for the other. I am doing the same thing; the lack of constraint is the main attraction of our correspon