_Friday night, April 8, 1843._
For two days I have had a horrible headache, and you write me all sorts
of dreadful things. The worst is that you have no remorse, and I had
some hope that it would be otherwise. I am so downcast that I have not
even the energy to abuse you.
What, then, is this miracle of which you speak? It would be a miracle to
make you less self-willed, but I shall never accomplish that. It is
beyond my power. I shall have to wait, therefore, until Monday to hear
the solution of the enigma, since you can not come to-morrow. Do you
know it will have been a week since I saw you? It has been a long time
since that has happened before. To make amends, we must take a long
walk, and try to avoid disputes. Two o’clock, if that suits you. I shall
expect you promptly to the minute. Your idea about Wilhelm Meister is
rather pretty, but, after all, it is only a sophism.
One might as well say that the memory of a pleasure is a variety of
pain. This is especially true of half-pleasures, by which I mean
pleasures unshared with another. You shall have those verses, if you
insist upon it. You shall have, also, your portrait in Turkish dress,
which I have begun. I have placed a nargile in your hand, to add to the
local colour. When I say you _shall_ have all this, I mean, of course,
if you pay for it. But if you will not pay up gracefully, I am going to
take a terrible revenge. I was asked yesterday for a drawing for an
album which is to be sold for the benefit of the earthquake sufferers,
and I shall give your portrait. What do you say to it? I ask myself
sometimes what I shall do in five or six weeks from now, when I shall
see you no longer. I can not realise yet that it is to be.