[Sidenote: REJECTS IMPUTATIONS ON HIS CONDUCT]
And now turn we to the selection from the Zmeskall correspondence:
January 19 (extract): Unfortunately I am always too much at liberty and you never.
February 2: The enclosed billet is at least 8 days old.
Not extra-ordinary but very ordinary quill-cutter, whose virtuosity assuredly shows a falling off in this specimen, these need a few new quill-repairs.
When will you throw off your chains, when?
You are thinking again of me--accursed be for me the life in this Austrian Barbary--I shall now go mostly to the Swan, as I cannot escape too much attention in the other inns.
Farewell, as well as I wish that you may without me.
Most Extraordinary one we beg that your servant find some one to clean out the rooms, as he knows the quarters he can at once fix the price--but soon.
February 8: Most Extraordinary, foremost Oscillator of the world and that without lever!!!!
We are indebted to you for the greatest thanks for having endowed us with a portion of your oscillatory power, we wish to thank you for the same in person, and therefore invite you to come to the Swan to-morrow, an inn whose name bears evidence that it was made for the occasion when the talk is about such things.
(February 19.) Dear Z: Only yesterday did I receive written notice that the Archduke will pay his share in notes of redemption--I beg you now to note down for me approximately what you said on Saturday so that I may send it to the other 2. They want to give me a certificate that the Archduke pays in N. R., but I think this is unnecessary, the more since these courtiers in spite of their apparent friendship for me say that my demands are not ~just~!!!!! O heaven help me to bear this; I am no Hercules who can help Atlas bear up the world or do it in his stead. It was only yesterday that I heard in detail how beautifully Herr Baron Kraft had spoken about me at Zizius's, had judged me--never mind dear Z. it will not be for much longer that I shall continue the shameful manner in which I am living here. Art, the persecuted one, finds everywhere an asylum, did not Dædalus, shut up in the labyrinth invent the wings which carried him ~upwards~ into the air, and I, too, will find them, these wings.