The proof that there is no justice in this world is that you take me, I am sure, for an ill-bred man and an ingrate. And yet there is no truth in it, for ever since I had the pleasure of seeing you at my house I have been anxiously watching for the moment of leisure that should permit me to go and shake hands with two friends. But if you could see, only for a day or two, the life I am leading, you would realize how impossible it is to make the two ends meet. For a week past, with my trunk packed, I have not been able to get away; and yet my visit to Manchester is urgent. But at this moment all the _dynamiteurs_ in the world—the _dynamiteurs_ are the directors and managers of the dynamite companies—have conspired to come here and bother me with their affairs,—conventions, plans, deceptions, etc., and I am ardently wishing that a new Mephisto would come to enrich hell with these evil-doers. A thousand friendly things—never friendly enough for you—and the assurance of my good will. A. Nobel Paris, January 22, 1888 The following letter is the answer to mine in which I wrote that I had been told at a florist’s that he was married and that the presence of a Madame Nobel had been announced in Nice. I asked whether I might congratulate him. He wrote back: Dear Baroness and Friend: What an ingrate this old Nobel is, but in appearance only, for the friendship which he feels for you only increases, and the nearer he approaches the final nothingness the more he values the few persons—men or women—who show him a little genuine interest. Could you have really believed that I was married, and married without informing you? That would have been a double crime against friendship and against courtesy. The bear has not as yet got so far as that. In making me married, the florist was using flowery language. As for Madame Nobel of Nice, it was in all probability my sister-in-law. That is how the secret and mysterious marriage is explained. Everything does in the end get explained in this world below, except the magnetism of the heart, to which this same world is indebted for its existing and living. Now this magnetism is just what I must be lacking in, since there is no Madame Nobel and since in my case the dust that is thrown in the eyes is inadequately replaced by gunpowder. You see there is no _jeune femme adorée_—I am quoting word for word—and I shall not find in that direction a remedy against my _nervosité anormale_—once more a literal quotation—or against my gloomy ideas. A few delicious days at Harmannsdorf might perhaps cure me, and if I have not as yet replied to your arch-amiable and friendly call of hospitality, that comes from a multitude of reasons which I will explain to you by word of mouth.