FREIBURG, December 27.
Dear Max--I very willingly gave you information as long as it related
only to tickets and sleeve buttons, but I must decline answering the
question contained in your last letter. Did you really believe, you
old Pedant, that I left your home--which was also mine--because we
disagreed in our views of matters and things in general? Then you are
mightily mistaken. I left you because I saw more plainly every day that
you no longer loved me. Yes, I had become a burden to you--you wanted
to get rid of me. If in that dignified parting scene you had said one
single tender word to me, I should probably have stayed, but, as usual,
you were on your high horse, from which you have now had so lamentable
a tumble just because your servants have left you. _I_ too have served
you faithfully, though you do not seem to have recognized that fact.
_I_ never let the fire go out on your hearth. It was not _my_ fault
when it grew cold.
Who knows whether you would have noticed the void left by my going if
your fur coat had not also been missing? This gave you an opportunity
of opening a correspondence with me, and it seems to be only fitting
that it should now close, since you have once more regained possession
of your property. I, at least, have nothing more to say.
Good-by forever,
EMMA.