A short time after my return from that expedition Karl Tausig called with a letter of introduction from Liszt; he was then sixteen years of age, and astonished everybody by his dainty appearance and his unusual precocity of understanding and demeanour.  He had already been greeted in Vienna, on his public appearance as a pianist, as a future Liszt.  He gave himself all the airs of a Liszt, and already smoked the strongest cigars to such an extent that I felt a perfect horror of them.  Otherwise I was very glad he had made up his mind to spend some time in the neighbourhood, all the more so as I could appreciate to the utmost his amusing, half-childish, though very intelligent and knowing personality, and, above all, his exceptionally finished piano-playing and quick musical faculty.  He played the most complicated pieces at sight, and knew how to use his astonishing facility in the most extravagant tricks for my entertainment.  He afterwards came to live quite near us; he was my daily guest at all meals, and accompanied me on my usual walks to the Sihlthal.  He soon tried to wriggle out of these, however.  He also went with me on a visit to Minna at Brestenberg.  As I had to repeat these expeditions regularly every week, being anxious to watch the result of the treatment, Tausig endeavoured to escape from these also, as neither Brestenberg nor Minna’s conversation seemed to appeal to him.  However, he could not avoid meeting her when, feeling obliged to interrupt her cure for a few days to look after her household affairs, she returned at the end of May.  I noticed by her manner that she no longer attached any importance to the recent domestic upheaval; the view she took of the matter was that there had been a little ‘love affair’ which she had put straight.  As she referred to this with a certain amount of unpleasant levity, I was obliged, though I would willingly have spared her on account of the state of her health, to explain clearly and firmly, that in consequence of her disobedience and her foolish conduct towards our neighbour, the possibility of our remaining on the estate, where we had only just settled with so much difficulty, was a matter of the most serious doubt, and I felt bound to warn her that we must be prepared for the necessity of a separation, as I was fully determined that if this dreaded event took place, I would not agree to live under similar domestic conditions elsewhere.  The earnestness with which I dwelt on the character of our past life together, on that occasion, so impressed and shocked her that, fully realising it was through her fault that the home it had cost us so much pain to build up had been destroyed, she broke into a low wail of lamentation for the first time in our lives.  This was the first and only occasion on which she gave me any token of loving humility, when late at night she kissed my hand as I withdrew.  I was deeply touched at this, and the idea flashed across my mind that possibly a great and decided change might take place in the character of the poor woman, and this determined me to renew my hope of the possibility of continuing the life we had resumed.