paw on my coat-collar proved incontestably that it was muddy weather.
Half an hour later Miss Breeze was galloping with me on the Elbe,
manifestly proud to carry your affianced, for never before did she so
scornfully smite the earth with her hoof. Fortunately you cannot
judge, my heart, in what a mood of dreary dulness I used to reenter my
house after a journey; what depression overmastered me when the door
of my room yawned at me and the mute furniture in the silent
apartments confronted me, bored like myself. The emptiness of my
existence was never clearer to me than in such moments, until I seized
a book--though none of them was sad enough for me--or mechanically
engaged in any routine work.

My preference was to come home at night, so that I could go to sleep
immediately.[6] Ach, Gott!--and now? What a different view I take of
everything--not merely that which concerns you as well, and because it
concerns you, or will concern you also (although I have been bothering
myself for two days with the question where your writing-desk will
stand), but my whole view of life is a new one, and I am cheerful and
interested even in my work on the dike and police matters. This
change, this new life, I owe, next to God, to you, _ma très chère, mon
adorée Jeanneton_--to you who do not heat me occasionally, like an
alcohol flame, but work in my heart like warming fire. Some one is
knocking.

Visit from the co-director, who complains of the people who will not
pay their school taxes. The man asks me whether my _fiancée_ is tall.

"Oh yes; rather."

"Well, an acquaintance of mine saw you last summer with several ladies