I inquired how he now stood with the Empress. He replied: “Just as before. She does what she can against me, and she is not always unsuccessful with the Emperor. She will ultimately drive Falk from office. The Court Chaplain? Christianity by all means, but no sectarianism! It just occurs to me,” he went on to say, “that in the Horsitz affair you write that Prince Charles sent Perponcher to offer me a bed. It was not he who did that, but the Duke of Mecklenburg. Such an idea would never occur to the Prince. He hates me and has already caused me plenty of heartburning.” I then expressed the hope that he would not attribute the passages that had been struck out to any bad will on my part but rather to thoughtlessness, as I had intended the whole work to serve and not to injure him. He replied: “A great deal of it is good and quite satisfactory, as for instance the portion dealing with the Pope and the Catholics. I only wish you had made it fuller. But that perhaps can be done later, when a good many things might be added. But could you not now abbreviate some parts of it?” I replied in the negative, as thousands of the forty or forty-one pages which we had read through were now printed, and any alteration would occasion great expense. When a second edition was being issued I would beg him to let me know what he wished to add. I could also be of service to him in the _Grenzboten_, which, it was true, was a small newspaper, but still enjoyed a certain prestige. Besides, we could get its more important articles reproduced in the daily papers, as has been done with success during the previous year. He seemed disposed to consider this suggestion. On my asking after his health, and whether Kissingen and Gastein had done him good, he replied: “Gastein, yes--but the waters are dangerous. They oblige one to be very careful afterwards, particularly with regard to worry and excitement. Otherwise they make one quite dull and heavy. I have now found that out. I suppose you know about my last illness?” “Yes, it was another attack of shingles.” “No, it was something else. The shorthand writers turned against me in connection with my last speech. So long as I was popular that was not the case. They garbled what I said so that there was no sense in it. When murmurs were heard from the Left or Centre they omitted the word ‘Left,’ and when there was applause they forgot to mention it. The whole Bureau acts in the same way. But I have complained to the President. It was that which made me ill. It was like the illness produced by over-smoking, a stuffiness in the head, giddiness, a disposition to vomit, &c.” He then gave a full description of this ailment, as also of the shingles. I inquired whether he was returning to Varzin or would go to Friedrichsruh, adding “or perhaps to the new Bavarian estate which is mentioned in the newspapers.”