"My ears are, alas! a partition wall through which I cannot easily have any friendly intercourse with men. Otherwise!--perhaps!--I should have felt more assured with you; but I could only understand the full, intelligent glance of your eyes, which has so taken hold of me, that I shall never forget it. Dear friend, dearest girl!--Art! who understands her? with whom can I discuss this great goddess?... How dear to me are the few days in which we chatted together, or, I should say, rather corresponded! I have preserved all the little notes with your witty, charming, most charming answers, and so I have to thank my defective hearing that the best part of those hasty conversations is written down. Since you left I have had vexatious hours--hours of shadow in which I can do nothing. I wandered in the Schönbrunn Allée for about three hours after you left, but no angel met me who could have taken possession of me as you did, _my Angel_. "Pardon, dearest friend, this deviation from the original key, but such intervals I must have as a relief to my heart. So you have written about me to Goethe, have you not? I could bury my head in a sack, so that I might not hear or see anything of all that is going on in the world, because I shall not meet you again, dearest angel, but I shall receive a letter from you soon. Hope sustains me, as she does half the world; through all my life she has been my companion. What would otherwise have become of me?--I send you 'Kennst du das Land,' written with my own hand, as a remembrance of the hour in which I first knew you. I send you also another, which I have composed since I took leave of you; my dearest _Herz_!" Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben, Was bedränget dich so sehr; Welch ein neues, fremdes Leben, Ich erkenne dich nicht mehr. "Answer me at once, dearest friend; write and tell me what is to become of me since my heart has turned such a rebel. Write to your most faithful friend, "BEETHOVEN." "_Vienna, 10th February, 1811._