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Vienna, at night
August 22, 1883
My beloved Marty
I have little more to say in answer to your letters than that I am delighted with all the good news they contain, that I readily agree with you in every respect, that I would prefer to tell you all I think with a kiss, and on the whole-glancing back-can't we claim to have surmounted all our difficulties and say that our love has now become lasting and deep?
I will use this late hour to tell you some factual news, otherwise these little items accumulate and I will never be able to drop back into a light and intimate chat.
Well, today I heard from Simon1 that he has instructed his bank to remit to Anna 100 florins to buy herself something for the wedding.2 It is none of my business, but this really isn't much from a rich uncle, nor is it very delicately given. If we ever get rich, sweetheart, we will do things differently. I know that you for one won't need any encouragement.
Paneth3 wrote today out of his dream of bliss; he sends greetings to you and his bride to me, the whole thing a panegyric to this best of all possible worlds.
Since Holländer4 left I see only two friends-Herzig, who occasionally comes in from the country where the girls5 also are, and Robert Franceschini, a friend as yet unknown to you, who began studying medicine with me-there were only three in the whole of our class to take up medicine, and we scribbled our names on a skeleton which we bought together-he then had to abandon medicine and zoology on account of a protracted illness, then became tutor to some rich people whom he also had to leave because of his illness, and finally after some improvement he found a job as a railway official. At the moment he is living very modestly with his old mother, writes feuilletons under the initials R. F. for all the papers on all kinds of subjects, in which he is helped by his numerous talents and his erudition. Lately he has embarked on the study of philosophy and is writing a thesis to take his degree. But the