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Vienna, Thursday
August 14, 1884
My severe little Princess
I am taking the liberty of pointing out that there are only seventeen more days and that between the time I write this and you
read it half of this wretched month will have been slain. May we never have another like it! Amen.
I am pleased to detect from the tone of your letter a note of returning calm and well-being. Let us be wonderfully well when we meet in seventeen days. I am afraid this second journey won't be quite like the first; all kinds of little things are missing. First, the belief-I won't believe it till I am actually sitting in the train. Then I am rather more tired, my best suit is so worn I hardly dare travel in it, and I will have only the second one in which to parade in Wandsbek. It is really mostly stains that spoil it, and perhaps something can be done about this. My hat is no longer new, I have been obliged to buy shirts here, of an inferior quality, but my love is the same and the longing has increased. I am not working so hard nowadays, am almost lazy, although I am busy all day, but I am getting through things without any great effort; after all, I feel sure of new contacts when I return, and all my old papers have at last appeared. The most recent one I sent you was an amplification of a previous work,1 the best I have ever done, although so far I haven't received one word of recognition for it, nothing but reproaches for the alleged lack of references to the relevant literature. At the moment I have nothing in print, but all kinds of things in my head.
Rosa was here yesterday, was seen by several colleagues and made a great impression with her beauty. Poor thing,2 she is leaving in a few days for Frau Königstein in Gmunden. Tomorrow I am going home for once to take the family out. Today the Hammerschlags, the dear people, are celebrating their silver wedding. Yesterday I sent them a photograph of myself. As soon as I get some more, I will send one to Minna; who can resist flattery? It