"To-day, the king said to me:

"'I am well aware, Countess, that you have thought contemptuously of
me, during the last two days. Every withdrawal of your sympathy affects
me as sensibly as if it were an electric shock. Do not let this happen
again, I beg of you!' and while he spoke, he looked at me like a
beseeching child. Ah, he has such deep, beautiful eyes!

"I remember your once saying to me: 'There are glances without a
background, void of depth or soul'; but the glances of this friend have
unfathomed depths.

"The bonds that held me captive shall no longer restrain me! I--I--but
no--I cannot write the word.

"Oh, Emma! How I wish I were a peasant on a lonely mountain height.
Last night, it seemed to me as if my native mountains were calling out
to me, 'Come home'--'Do come'--'It is good to be with us.' Ah, I would
like to come, but cannot.

"Walpurga is a great friend to me at present. I become absorbed in her
life, so full of true, natural repose. I find it excessively amusing to
behold the court as reflected through her eyes. It seems like a very
puppet-play, and we, like two merry children at a raree-show.

"We often sing together, and I have learned some lovely songs from her.
Oh, how charmingly independent the country people are.

"'On mountain heights there dwells no sin.' The song is ever haunting
me.

"The king departs for the baths to-day: my brother is in his suite. The
king requested me to write to him, now and then. I shall not do it."

"_Two days later_,

"The king knows that I cannot live unless there be flowers in my room,
and has given orders to have a fresh bouquet placed there every day.
This displeases me. A flower that a friend has stooped to pluck for you
is worth more than a thousand artistically arranged bouquets.

"The king has also left orders that bouquets shall be sent daily to
Baroness N---- and Countess A----. I think this is only to avoid
remarks upon the attentions shown me. I am angry at the king. He shall
not have a line from me.

"I have for some time past been taking lessons in modeling, from a
professor at the academy. He has finished a bust of me, and has used it
as a model for a figure of Victory, to be placed on the new arsenal.
Have I not reason to be proud? After this, I shall ever be in the open
air, and shall see nothing but the blue sky, the sun, the moon, and the
stars, and, at noon, the guard-mounting.