les me!
Although there is no lack of entertainment and diversion
here, I rarely feel inclined for amusement.

To-day is the first of January. Oh, how sadly this year
begins for me! I love you [his friends] above all things.
Write as soon as possible. Is she at Radom? Have you thrown
up redoubts? My poor parents! How are my friends faring?

I could die for you, for you all! Why am I doomed to be here
so lonely and forsaken? You can at least open your hearts to
each other and comfort each other. Your flute will have
enough to lament! How much more will my piano have to weep!

You write that you and your regiment are going to take the
field; how will you forward the note? Be sure you do not send
it by a messenger; be cautious! The parents might perhaps--
they might perhaps view the matter in a false light.

I embrace you once more. You are going to the war; return as
a colonel. May all pass off well! Why may I not at least be
your drummer?

Forgive the disorder in my letter, I write as if I were
intoxicated.

The disorder of the letters is indeed very striking; it is great in
the foregoing extracts, and of course ten times greater with the
interspersed descriptions, bits of news, and criticisms on music and
musicians. I preferred separating the fundamental and always-recurring
thoughts, the all-absorbing and predominating feelings, from the more
superficial and passing fancies and affections, and all those
matters which were to him, if not of total indifference, at least of
comparatively little moment; because such a separation enables us to
gain a clearer and fuller view of the inner man and to judge henceforth
his actions and works with some degree of certainty, even where his own
accounts and comments and those of trustworthy witnesses fail us. The
psychological student need not be told to take note of the disorder in
these two letters and of their length (written to the same person within
less than a week, they fill nearly twelve printed pages in Karasowski's
book), he will not be found neglecting such important indications of the
temporary mood and the character of which it is a manifestation. And now
let us take a glance at Chopin's outward life in Vienna.

I have already stated that Chopin and Woyciechowski lived together.
Their lodgings, for which they had to pay their landlady, a baroness,
fifty florins, were on the third story of a house in the Koh