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Vienna, at night
June 16, 1873
Dear Friend
If I didn't shrink from making the silliest joke of our facetious century, I would just say: “The Matura1 is dead, long live the Matura.” But I like this joke so little that I wish the second Matura were over, too. Despite secret qualms of conscience and feelings of remorse I wasted the week following the written exam, and ever since yesterday I have been trying to compensate for the loss by filling up thousands of old gaps. You never would listen when I accused myself of laziness, but I know better and feel there is something in it.
Your curiosity over the Matura will have to be content with cold dishes as it comes too late and after the meal is finished, and unfortunately I can no longer furnish an impressive description of all the hopes and doubts, the perplexity and hilarity, the light that suddenly dawned upon one, and the inexplicable windfalls that were discussed “among colleagues”-to do this the written exam is already of far too little interest to me. I shall refrain from telling you the results. That I sometimes had good and sometimes bad luck goes without saying; on such important occasions kind Providence and wicked Fate are invariably involved. Events of this kind differ from the ordinary run of things. Briefly, since I don't wish to keep you on tenterhooks about something so unattractive: for the five papers I got exc., good, good, good, fair. Very annoying. In Latin we were given a passage from Virgil which I had read by chance on my own account some time ago; this induced me to do the