Vienna, Thursday
August 6, 1885

My lovable little woman

I have just got back from Baden. As you have seen him [Schonberg] recently I won't describe to you what he looks like now-without blood or flesh, without voice or breath. One of his lungs is completely destroyed, and the other probably riddled with disease. I consider him a lost man; how fast or how slowly the miserable remains will take to burn themselves out, I don't know; in Vienna he would probably last three months; what could be achieved by a better climate, care, and quiet remains to be seen.

For us in any case he is lost. His wretched soul is weary; enthusiasm for an aim, passion, the halo with which one surrounds