A Legacy. 379 



I was, however, not permitted to stay at h ome yet. I felt 

 very weak and ill. The physicians said that my whole nervous 

 system was in disorder, and advised me to go again to the 

 seaside, and I selected Scheveningen. There I became ^so 

 weak that I had to be carried up and down the staircase, and 

 had to go in a perambulator to the shore. 



Lt is true I had undergone many fatigues and mental 

 anxieties, and they certainly had had an influence on my 

 health ; but during the excitements and occupations of the 

 war my energy had carried me through, and I might have 

 escaped any bad consequences, it I could have had rest. 

 More than all bodily tatigues and mental anxieties of the past 

 years, the humiliations and mortifications to which I had been 

 subjected since my return, in consequence of money affairs, 

 undermined my health. Besides this, the whole position in 

 which I was placed made me melancholy. My very limited 

 income compelled me to restrictions which excluded me from 

 the company to which I was used, and I thought it much 

 easier to live in a convent than to live in the world without 

 means. This care was, however, taken trom me in a manner 

 which occurs more trequently in novels than in reality, but 

 which was fortunately reality, and changed at once the aspect 

 of afiairs and restored my health. 



Whilst I w^as in Schev'eningen, feeling most miserable, I 

 received the news that a distant relative in America had left 

 me a legacy. The exact amount ol this legacy was not stated, 

 but a sum, which seemed to me at that time very great, was 

 placed at my disposal. I believed it then to be all I had to 

 receive, and was anxious to employ the money in a judicious 

 manner, and, if possible, to acquire with it a house of my 

 own. In this I succeeded beyond my expectation. When I 

 rented the houce in Bonn trom Mr. Cahn, he said, in the 

 course of conversation, that it I wanted to buy it he would let 

 me have it tor a certain moderate sum. Since that time the 

 price ot houses had increased considerably, and I knew that a 

 good many thousands more than the sum mentioned by Mr. 

 Cahn had been ofi'ered to him. I reminded him, however, of 

 his offer ; and though it was not made in such a manner as to 

 make any legal obligation, he was kind and honourable enough 

 to make good his word, and I bought the house at many 

 thousands below its actual value. 



