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Vienna
August 28, 1884
Dear Minna
I would like to say: you can be very sweet-if this didn't imply that you are not always so. To avoid committing such an injustice, even indirectly, I prefer to say that you are very sweet whenever you have the chance. Our relationship nowadays exists exclusively on little presents, one in which I am bound to appear as the less active party. But you shouldn't have to acquire my picture, the very thought shocks me, and that I have failed to send it before is entirely the fault of the tardy photographer. It isn't too late, I trust?
It is the picture of a dispossessed man of importance,1 something I have been until today, but as of today I am once more a poor little devil and you will very soon be able to convince yourself of the truth of it. “Very soon” is what the historians and similar unfeeling people say. While it is the privilege of the Almighty that to Him millenniums are as moments, we poor human creatures indulge in the opposite: to us days are as millenniums. It seems an invention of the devil that suffering should prolong time, joy shorten it.
I have had several urgent letters from your beloved; since I answered him he is silent again. He probably thinks I lack the strength for an answer just now am really so weary it is no longer decent, and apathetic into the bargain. The engine must have some