usive feeling
of more vigour and ease. As I walked home to-day--I dine at three
o'clock--I really felt hungry, but I know how it is with me.

To-day there is at Meran besides the usual market one of those large
meat ones that take place in the autumn when the Lauben are transformed
into long rows of butcher's stalls, and butchering goes on in all the
court-yards. On every peg, there hangs the half of a pig or a calf
which is sold to the peasants, who come in great multitudes from the
Vintschgau, Passeier, and Ultner valleys, and from the different farms
in the neighbourhood. Other booths are filled with various merchandize:
iron-ware, clothes images of saints and numberless trifles. Between
these boothes the people push, press, and jostle, so that if one is not
in danger of one's life, one is at all events nearly suffocated as the
smell of the meat mingles with the fumes of bad tobacco. I have even
seen boys of ten years old walk about with short pipes in their mouths,
and the smoke hangs over the market-place like a heavy fog; the lungs
that can stand it must really be strong as healthy. I nearly fainted.
Those great strong fellows would not stir a step out of my way.
Fortunately my friend of the Kuechelberg and his Liese came to my
rescue, just when I most needed it. By plenty of vigorous elbowing he
at last got me safely through those human walls. He was again somewhat
flushed with wine, but he nevertheless appeared to me like a guardian
angel and I easily forgave him the question he jokingly asked me about
my brother or sweetheart. I could not make him understand that the
gentleman was neither the one or the other, though very dear to me.

My landlady has just brought me in my afternoon meal. My hunger has
grown so morbid that I cannot wait till supper time. Probably these are
the last figs of this year. Thank heaven that ham and bread are not
restricted to any particular season. What if I played our old doctor
the trick of dying before the spring, and that of starvation!

The 19th November.

I can hardly hold my pen, I tremble so with the agitation of this last
hour. How rashly I hoped that the weeks would glide on peaceful, and
full of sunshine like the last one; one day resembling the other. In
the forenoon, those happy hours on the Wassermauer with Morrik; the
remainder of the day, my books, and letters, or my work and my piano,
which I fancy sounds more and m