my indifferent manner on receiving news of misfortune vexes him, and
as long as I do not express surprise he has ever new and still worse
news in stock. This time he attained his object, at least in my inner
man, and when I took my seat next to the Jewish elbow in green fur I
was in a right bad humor; especially the colt distressed me--an animal
as pretty as a picture and three years old.

Not before getting out of doors did I become conscious of the
ingratitude of my heart, and the thought of the unmerited happiness
that had become mine a fortnight earlier again won the mastery in me.
In Stettin I found drinking, gambling friends. William Ramin took
occasion to say, _apropos_ of a remark about reading the Bible, "Tut!
In Reinfeld I'd speak like that, too, if I were in your place, but to
believe you can impose on your oldest acquaintances is amusing." I
found my sister very well and full of joy about you and me. She wrote
to you, I think, before she received your letter. Arnim is full of
anxiety lest I become "pious." He kept looking at me all the time
earnestly and thoughtfully, with sympathetic concern, as one looks at
a dear friend whom one would like to save and yet almost gives up for
lost. I have seldom seen him so tender. Very clever people have a
curious manner of viewing the world. In the evening (I hope you did
not write so late) I drank your health in the foaming grape-juice of
Sillery, in company with half a dozen Silesian counts, Schaffgotsch
and others, at the Hôtel de Rome, and convinced myself Friday morning
that the ice on the Elbe was still strong enough to bear my horse's
weight, and that, so far as the freshet was concerned, I might today
be still at your blue or black side[4] if other current official
engagements had not also claimed my presence. Snow has fallen very
industriously all day long, and the country is white once more,
without severe cold. When I arrived it was all free from snow on this