How quickly this dear time passes!  It is already the end of May, and I am still in Vienna.  June will come, and I shall probably be still here, for Kumelski fell ill and was obliged to take to bed again.

It was not only June but past the middle of July before Chopin left, and I am afraid he would not always have so good an excuse for prolonging his stay as the sickness of his travelling-companion.  On June 25, however, we hear of active preparations being made for departure.

I am in good health, that is the only thing that cheers me, for it seems as if my departure would never take place.  You all know how irresolute I am, and in addition to this I meet with obstacles at every step.  Day after day I am promised my passport, and I run from Herod to Pontius Pilate, only to get back what I deposited at the police office.  To-day I heard even more agreeable news—­namely, that my passport has been mislaid, and that they cannot find it; I have even to send in an application for a new one.  It is curious how now every imaginable misfortune befalls us poor Poles.  Although I am ready to depart, I am unable to set out.

Chopin had been advised by Mr. Beyer to have London instead of Paris put as a visa in his passport.  The police complied with his request that this should be done, but the Russian Ambassador, after keeping the document for two days, gave him only permission to travel as far as Munich.  But Chopin did not care so long as he got the signature of the French Ambassador.  Although his passport contained the words “passant par Paris a Londres,” and he in after years in Paris sometimes remarked, in allusion to these words, “I am here only in passing,” he had no intention of going to London.  The fine sentiment, therefore, of which a propos of this circumstance some writers have delivered themselves was altogether misplaced.  When the difficulty about the passport was overcome, another arose:  to enter Bavaria from cholera-stricken Austria a passport of health was required.  Thus Chopin had to begin another series of applications, in fact, had to run about for half a day before he obtained this additional document.

Chopin appears to have been rather short of money in the latter part of his stay in Vienna—­a state of matters with which the financial failure of the concert may have had something to do.  The preparations for his departure brought the pecuniary question still more prominently forward.  On June 25, 1831, he writes to his parents:—­

I live as economically as possible, and take as much care of every kreuzer as of that ring in Warsaw [the one given him by the Emperor Alexander].  You may sell it, I have already cost you so much.

He must have talked about his shortness of money to some of his friends in Vienna, for he mentions that the pianist-composer Czapek, who calls on him every day and shows him much kindness, has offered him money for the journey should he stand in need of it.  One would hardly have credited Chopin with proficiency in an art in which he nevertheless greatly excelled—­namely, in the art of writing begging letters.  How well he understood how to touch the springs of the parental feelings the following application for funds will prove.