Dearest Felice, I may not have put things quite accurately this afternoon. I rely so much on the moment and its influences. So try to understand me! What my father said is consent, after his fashion, as far as he can give his consent to anything I want. He talks about his children’s happiness being close to his heart, and he hardly ever tells a deliberate lie, he has too strong a character for that. But the fears that lie behind it—that’s another matter. In this respect he may be rather like your mother: he foresees catastrophe everywhere. When he was younger and still had complete confidence in himself and his health, these fears were not so pronounced, least of all when dealing with anything he had started and carried out himself. But today he fears everything, and, horrible as it may be, these fears, at any rate in important matters, are invariably confirmed. These constant warnings mean no more in the end than that happiness is a rare thing, and this, after all, is a fact. But then my father has worked hard all his life, and from nothing has made, comparatively speaking, something. This progress, however, came to an end years ago, when his daughters were grown up, and now, owing to their marriages, it has turned into a frightful never-ending decline. My father has the feeling that his sons-in-law as well as his own children, save for me at present, are permanently around his neck. This feeling, alas, is completely justified, and enormously intensified by my father’s illness, a hardening of the arteries. Now he reasons as follows: if I marry, I who so far have not been included in these worries, I am bound to get into financial difficulties, if not at once, then certainly in 2 years’ time; and then, however much I may deny it now, I would come to him, almost paralyzed with worry as he is, for help; or, if I didn’t, he would still try somehow to provide it, thus hastening his own ruin and the ruin of all those whom he believes to be dependent on him. You should see him in this light, Felice. But now, after all this, allow me—and this is something I have not dared to imagine for a long time—allow me to give you a long, calm kiss, as calm as possible.
Yours, Franz
If only one could somehow reassure him, at least on this one point! I have no proper appreciation of money (I may have inherited from my father avarice in little things, but not, alas, his acquisitiveness), and even less for the necessities of life. If my father tells me we’ll get into financial difficulties, I believe it; and if you tell me we won’t get into difficulties, I believe it even more readily. Anyway, I can’t argue about it with my father; this would require a far sharper tongue than mine.
And please, Felice, do write regularly in these trying times!
Brühl is a terrible man. First he embezzles, then he has an affair, or are the two connected? Haven’t most of the children started earning a living?