of it I forget.  My reading by myself consisted of Chateaubriand’s La Vie de Rance, which Tausig had brought me.  Meanwhile, he himself vanished without leaving any trace, until after some time he reappeared engaged to a Hungarian pianist.  During the whole of this time I was very ill and suffered exceedingly from a violent catarrh.  The thought of death took such hold on me that I at last lost all desire to shake it off, and even set about bequeathing my books and manuscripts, of which a portion fell to the lot of Cornelius.

I had taken the precaution some time before of commending into Standhartner’s keeping my remaining—­and now, alas! exceedingly doubtful—­assets which were in the house at Penzing.  As my friends were most positive in recommending preparation for immediate flight, I had written to Otto Wesendonck requesting to be taken into his house, as Switzerland was to be my destination.  He refused point-blank, and I could not resist sending him a reply to prove the injustice of this.  The next thing was to make my absence from home a short one and to count upon a speedy return.  Standhartner made me go and dine at his house in his great anxiety to cover up my departure, and my servant Franz Mrazek brought my trunk there too.  My farewell to Standhartner, his wife Anna, and the good dog Pohl was very depressing.  Standhartner’s stepson Karl Schonaich and Cornelius accompanied me to the station, the one in grief and tears, the other inclining to a frivolous mood.  It was on the afternoon of 23rd March that I left for Munich, my first stopping-place, where I hoped to rest for two days after the terrible disturbances I had gone through, without attracting any notice.  I stayed at the ‘Bayerischer Hof’ and took a few walks through the city at my leisure.  It was Good Friday and the weather was bitterly cold.  The mood proper to the day seemed to possess the whole population, whom I saw going from one church to another dressed in deepest mourning.  King Maximilian ii.—­of whom the Bavarians had become so fond—­had died a few days before, leaving as heir to the throne a son aged eighteen and a half, whose extreme youth was no bar to his accession.  I saw a portrait of the young king, Ludwig ii. in a shop window, and experienced the peculiar emotion which is aroused by the sight of youth and beauty placed in a position presumed to be unusually trying.  After writing a humorous epitaph for myself, I crossed Lake Constance unmolested and reached Zurich—­once more a refugee in need of an asylum—­ where I at once betook myself to Dr. Wille’s estate at Mariafeld.

I had already written to my friend’s wife to ask her to put me up for a few days, which she very kindly agreed to do.  I had got to know her very well during my last stay at Zurich, while my friendship with him had somewhat cooled.  I wanted to have time to find what seemed suitable quarters in one of the places bordering on Lake Zurich.  Dr. Wille himself was not there, as he had gone to Constantinople