the case, under the appearance of a tolerably happy married life.  About this time, and just as my visit, which had already lasted three weeks, was drawing to a close, I received a letter from my wife that could not have had a more unfortunate effect on my state of mind.  She was, on the whole, pleased at my having found new friends, but at the same time explained that if I did not immediately return to Paris, and there endeavour to secure the production of my overture with the results anticipated, she would not know what to think of me, and would certainly fail to understand me if I returned to Zurich without having effected my purpose.  At the same time my depression was intensified in a terrible way by a notice in the papers announcing that Rockel, Bakunin, and Heubner had been sentenced to death, and that the date of their execution was fixed.  I wrote a short but stirring letter of farewell to the two first, and as I saw no possibility of having it conveyed to the prisoners, who were confined in the fortress of Konigstein, I decided to send it to Frau von Luttichau, to be forwarded to them by her, because I thought she was the only person in whose power it might lie to do this for me, while at the same time she had sufficient generosity and independence of mind to enable her to respect and carry out my wishes, in spite of any possible difference of opinion she might entertain.  I was told some time afterwards that Luttichau had got hold of the letter and thrown it into the fire.  For the time being this painful impression helped me to the determination to break with every one and everything, to lose all desire to learn more of life or of art, and, even at the risk of having to endure the greatest privations, to trust to chance and put myself beyond the reach of everybody.  The small income settled upon me by my friends I wished to divide between myself and my wife, and with my half go to Greece or Asia Minor, and there, Heaven alone knew how, seek to forget and be forgotten.  I communicated this plan to the only confidante I had left to me, chiefly in order that she might be able to enlighten my benefactors as to how I intended disposing of the income they had offered me.  She seemed pleased with the idea, and the resolve to abandon herself to the same fate seemed to her also, in her resentment against her position, to be quite an easy matter.  She expressed us much by hints and a word dropped here and there.  Without clearly realising what it would lead to, and without coming to any understanding with her, I left Bordeaux towards the end of April, more excited than soothed in spirit, and filled with regret and anxiety.  I returned to Paris, for the time being, stunned and full of uncertainty as to what to do next.  Feeling very unwell, exhausted, and at the same time excited from want of sleep, I reached my destination and put up at the Hotel Valois, where I remained a week, struggling to gain my self-control and to face my strange position.