long dead. All these hidden fears, all this solicitude, these good
wishes, preachings and forebodings--there is not a single genuine
feeling among the whole of them!

Margethe Ernst is the only one of my old friends who is sincere and
does not let herself be carried away by false sentiment. She writes
cynically, brutally even: "An injection of morphia would have had just
the same effect on you; but everyone to his own taste."

As to Lillie, with her simple, gushing nature, she tries to write
lightly and cheerfully, but one divines her tears between the lines. She
wishes me every happiness, and assures me she will take Malthe under her
motherly wing.

"He is quiet and taciturn, but fortunately much engrossed with his plans
for the new hospital which will keep him in Denmark for some years to
come."

His work absorbs him; he is young enough to forget.

As to the long accounts of deaths, accidents and scandals, a year or two
ago they might have stirred me in much the same way as the sight of a
fire or a play. Now it amuses me quite as much to watch the smoke from
my chimney, as it ascends and seems to get caught in the tops of the
trees.

Richard is still travelling with his grief, and entertains me
scrupulously with accounts of all the sights he sees and of his lonely
sleepless nights. Are they always as lonely as he makes out?