er
portrait-or landscape-painting?

* * * * *

You foolish girl, with your external things! You want to know what is
going on around me, and where and when and how I live and amuse
myself? Just look around you, on the chair beside you, in your arms,
close to your heart--that is where I am. Does not a ray of longing
strike you, creep up with sweet warmth to your heart, until it reaches
your mouth, where it would fain overflow in kisses?

And now you actually boast because you write me such warm letters,
while I only write to you often, you pedantic creature. At first I
always think of you as you describe it--that I am walking with you,
looking at you, listening to you, talking with you. Then again it is
sometimes quite different, especially when I wake up at night.

How can you have any doubt about the worthiness and divineness of
your letters? The last one sparkles and beams as if it had bright
eyes. It is not mere writing--it is music. I believe that if I were to
stay away from you a few more months, your style would become
absolutely perfect. Meanwhile I think it advisable for us to forget
about writing and style, and no longer to postpone the highest and
loveliest of studies. I have practically decided to set out in eight
days.

II

It is a remarkable thing that man does not stand in great awe of
himself. The children are justified, when they peep so curiously and
timidly at a company of unknown faces. Each individual atom of
everlasting time is capable of comprising a world of joy, and at the
same time of opening up a fathomless abyss of pain and suffering. I
understand now the old fairy-tale about the man whom the sorcerer
allowed to live a great many years in a few moments. For I know by my
own experience the terrible omnipotence of the fantasy.

Since the last letter from your sister--it is three days now--I have
undergone the sufferings of an entire life, from the bright sunlight
of glowing youth to the pale moonlight of sagacious old age. Every
little detail she wrote about your sickness, taken with what I had
already gleaned from the doctor and had observed myself, confirmed my
suspicion that it was far more dangerous than you thought; indeed no
longer dangerous, but decided, past hope. Lost in this thought and my
strength entirely exhausted on account of the impossibility of
hurrying to your side, my state of mind was really very disconsolate.
Now for the first time I