small, before the window orange, palm, and cypress trees.
Opposite the window, under a Moorish filigree rosette, stands
my bed. By its side an old square thing like a table for
writing, scarcely serviceable; on it a leaden candlestick (a
great luxury) with a little tallow-candle, Works of Bach, my
jottings, and old scrawls that are not mine, this is all I
possess. Quietness...one may shout and nobody will hear...in
short, I am writing to you from a strange place.

Your letter of the 9th of December I received the day before
yesterday; as on account of the holidays the express mail does
not leave till next week, I write to you in no great hurry. It
will be a Russian month before you get the bill of exchange
which I send you.

Sublime nature is a fine thing, but one should have nothing to
do with men--nor with roads and posts. Many a time I came here
from Palma, always with the same driver and always by another
road. Streams of water make roads, violent rains destroy them;
to-day it is impossible to pass, for what was a road is
ploughed; next day only mules can pass where you were driving
yesterday. And what carriages here! That is the reason,
Julius, why you do not see a single Englishman, not even an
English consul.

Leo is a Jew, a rogue! I was at his house the day before my
departure, and I told him not to send me anything here. I
cannot send you the Preludes, they are not yet finished. At
present I am better and shall push on the work. I shall write
and thank him in a way that will make him wince.