Then, too, the road hither, at least from Gran to Pesth, would have pleased you.  Imagine Odenwald and Taunus moved close together, the waters of the Danube filling the interval; and occasionally, particularly near Wisserad, a little Duerrenstein-Agstein.  The shady side of the trip was the sunny side; it burned as if they wanted tokay to grow on the steamer, and the crowd of travelers was large; but, just imagine, not one Englishman; it must be that they have not yet discovered Hungary.  For the rest, there were queer fellows enough, dirty and washed, of all Oriental and Occidental nations. * * * By this time I am becoming impatient as to Hildebrand’s whereabouts; I am lying in the window, half musing in the moonlight, half waiting for him as for a mistress, for I long for a clean shirt. * * * If you were here for only a moment, and could contemplate now the dull, silvery Danube, the dark hills on a pale-red background, and the lights which are shining up from Pesth below, Vienna would lose much in your estimation compared to Buda-Pescht, as the Hungarian calls it.  You see I am not only a lover, but also an enthusiast, for nature.  Now I shall soothe my excited blood with a cup of tea, after Hildebrand has actually put in an appearance, and shall then go to bed and dream of you, my love.  Last night I had only four hours of sleep, and the court here is terribly matutinal; the young gentleman himself rises as early as five o ’clock, so that I should be a bad courtier if I were to sleep much longer.  Therefore I bid you good-night from afar, with a side-glance at a gigantic teapot and an enticing plate of cold jellied cuts, tongue, as I see, among the rest.  Where did I get that song that occurs to me continually today—­“Over the blue mountain, over the white sea-foam, come, thou beloved one, come to thy lonely home”?  I don’t know who must have sung that to me, some time in auld lang syne.  May God’s angels keep you today as hitherto.

Your most faithful v.B.

The 24th.

After having slept very well, although on a wedge-shaped pillow, I bid you good-morning, my heart.  The whole panorama before me is bathed in such a bright, burning sun that I cannot look out at all without being blinded.  Until I begin my calls I am sitting here breakfasting and smoking all alone in a very spacious apartment—­four rooms, all thickly vaulted, two something like our dining-room in size, thick walls as at Schoenhausen, gigantic nut-wood closets, blue silk furnishings, a profusion of large spots on the floor, an ell in size, which a more excited fancy than mine might take for blood, but which I decidedly declare to be ink; an unconscionably awkward scribe must have lodged here, or another Luther repeatedly hurled big inkstands at his opponents. * * * Exceedingly strange figures, brown, with broad hats and wide trousers, are floating about on long wooden rafts in the Danube below.  I regret I am not an artist; I should like to let you see these wild faces, mustached, long-haired with excited black eyes, and the ragged, picturesque drapery which hangs about them, as they appeared to me all day yesterday. * * * Farewell, my heart.  God bless you and our present and future children.