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Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
Thursday, June 7, 1894
My beloved darling
Yesterday evening was almost unbearably sultry. In the morning I wake at six, find the room light, think to myself that this
rare event of waking up so early should be put to some use, knock at Marie's door and order a bath, then lie down again. Half an hour later I wake up again, find the room so dark that I can't see the clock, quickly dismiss the notion that I could have gone blind, dash to the window and see a strip of black sky. A few minutes later comes a roar of thunder, in no time the street is completely white, horses break loose, hailstones of a fantastic size beat against the windows. I rush to the back, there I find the study window already smashed in three places, the writing table flooded, the wings of the window wide open, of course. The terrace looked almost grandiose, the doors had been blown open and the hailstones covered the floor as far as the sideboard. The storm lasted for half an hour. The devastation in the city is terrific. On one side of almost every street (in the Berggasse it's opposite) nearly all the windowpanes are smashed, especially in the upper stories; for long stretches not one pane is intact, as though boys had bombarded them with stones; at street corners and where windows have not been protected by moldings it looks simply ludicrous. A woman who came to see me this morning was quite right when she said that the windows looked like circus hoops after dogs had jumped through them. Other streets have been spared. The trees have suffered most; in our garden there are more leaves on the ground than on the branches, and the poor tree itself is torn and battered; it looks as though it had been thrashed with whips and then chewed by caterpillars. Anything that was a garden must be in an awful state. I am told that the windows-in our case only one-are to be repaired by the landlord. I am anxious to know if you had anything like this in your part of the world; it could hav