BERLIN, December 12.
Dear Gustav--Pardon me that I have so long delayed thanking you for
your answer of friendly sympathy to my last letter.
I have been in no condition to write, and even now find it difficult.
You congratulate me without reserve on a step which you regard as
essential to my welfare and to my intellectual development, but you do
not take into consideration what it means to separate from one who has
for eleven years been one’s constant companion, day and night. Indeed,
it is only during these last dreary weeks that I, myself, have realized
what the change signifies to me. Habit is all powerful, especially with
men who, like you and me, live in the intellectual world and so require
a solid substructure.
How are we to take observations from the tower battlements when its
foundations are not firmly established? Of course, I am as certain as
ever I was that our decision is for the best interests of us both, but
in this queer world of ours we can take no step without unlooked-for
results.
I am bothered from morn till night with trifles to which I have never
given a thought since my bachelor days--things which I will not
mention, so absurdly insignificant are they--and yet they rob me of my
time and destroy my peace. I am at a loss what steps to take to rid
myself of the thousand petty cares and annoyances which my wife has
hitherto borne for me. These servants! Now that the cat is away they
think that they can do just as they please, and you have no idea of the
silly obstacles over which I am continually stumbling, of the wretched
pitfalls which beset my path. Here is one instance out of many: For
several days it has been very cold, and I can not find my fur coat.
With the chambermaid’s assistance I have turned the whole house upside
down, until she finally remembered that my wife, last spring, sent it
to a furrier’s to be kept from the moth. But to which furrier? I have
been to a dozen and can not find it.
If I had only not agreed with my wife that we were, under no
circumstances, to write to each other, I should simply ask her--but
it is best so. No strain of the commonplace must mingle with the sad
echoes of our farewell. No--a farce never follows a drama. Perhaps she
might even imagine that I seize the first pretext to renew relations
with her.
Never!
To-day it is six below zero.