After I had paid an unsuccessful visit to Herr Bauernfeld, relative to the same business, I concluded that Vienna was of no more use for the present, and gave myself up to the exceptionally stimulating impressions produced by the public life of the motley crowd, which of late had undergone such marked changes.  If the student band, which was always represented in great numbers in the streets, had already amused me with the extraordinary constancy with which its members sported the German colours, I was very highly diverted by the effect produced when at the theatres I saw even the ices served by attendants in the black, red, and gold of Austria.  At the Karl Theatre, in the Leopold quarter of the town, I saw a new farce, by Nestroy, which actually introduced the character of Prince Metternich, and in which this statesman, on being asked whether he had poisoned the Duke of Reichstadt, had to make his escape behind the wings as an unmasked sinner.  On the whole, the appearance of this imperial city—­usually so fond of pleasure—­impressed one with a feeling of youthful and powerful confidence.  And this impression was revived in me when I heard of the energetic participation of the youthful members of the population, during those fateful October days, in the defence of Vienna against the troops of Prince Windischgratz.

On the homeward journey I touched at Prague, where I found my old friend Kittl (who had grown very much more corpulent) still in the most terrible fright about the riotous events which had taken place there.  He seemed to be of opinion that the revolt of the Tschech party against the Austrian Government was directed at him personally, and he thought fit to reproach himself with the terrible agitation of the time, which he believed he had specially inflamed by his composition of my operatic text of Die Franzosen vor Nizza, out of which a kind of revolutionary air seemed to have become very popular.  To my great pleasure, on my homeward journey I had the company of Hanel the sculptor, whom I met on the steamer.  There travelled with us also a Count Albert Nostitz, with whom he had just settled up his business concerning the statue of the Emperor Charles iv., and he was in the gayest mood, as the extremely insecure state of Austrian paper money had led to his being paid at a great profit to himself, in silver coin in accordance with his agreement.  I was very pleased to find that, thanks to this circumstance, he was in such a confident mood, and so free from prejudice, that on, arriving at Dresden he accompanied me the whole way—­a very long distance—­from the landing-stage at which we had left the steamer to my house, in an open carriage; and this despite the fact that he very well knew that, only a few weeks before, I had caused a really terrible stir in this very city.