We were first of all rejoiced to find Cosima’s state of health much less alarming than we—­I in particular—­had known it to be before.  She had been ordered a sour-milk cure, and we went to look on the next morning when she took her walk to the institution.  Cosima appeared to lay less stress on the actual milk-drinking, however, than on the walks and the sojourn in the splendid, bracing, mountain air.  Ollivier and I were generally excluded from the merriment which here too immediately set in, as the two sisters, to secure more privacy for their talks—­they laughed so incessantly that they could be heard a long way off—­ usually shut themselves away from us in their bedrooms, and almost my only resource was to converse in French with my political friend.  I succeeded in gaining admission to the sisters once or twice, to announce to them amongst other things my intention of adopting them, as their father took no more notice of them—­a proposition received with more mirth than confidence.  I once deplored Cosima’s wild ways to Blandine, who seemed unable to understand me, until she had persuaded herself that I meant timidite d’un sauvage by my expression.  After a few days I had really to think of continuing my journey, which had been so pleasantly interrupted.  I said good-bye in the hall, and caught a glimpse of almost timid inquiry from Cosima.

I first drove down the valley to Salzburg in a one-horse carriage.  On the Austrian frontier I had an adventure with the custom-house.  Liszt had given me at Weimar a box of the most costly cigars—­a present to him from Baron Sina.  As I knew from my visit to Venice what incredible formalities make it exceedingly difficult to introduce these articles into Austria, I hit upon the plan of hiding the cigars singly among my dirty linen and in the pockets of my clothes.  The officer, who was an old soldier, seemed to be prepared for precautionary measures of this sort, and drew forth the corpora delicta skilfully from all the folds of my little trunk.  I tried to bribe him with a tip, which he actually accepted, and I was all the more indignant when, in spite of this, he denounced me to the authorities.  I was made to pay a heavy fine, but received permission to buy back the cigars.  This I furiously declined to do.  With the receipt of the fine I had paid, however, I was also given back the Prussian thaler which the old soldier had quietly tucked away before, and when I got into my carriage to continue the journey I saw the same officer sitting placidly before his beer and bread and cheese.  He bowed very politely, and I offered to give him his thaler back, but this time he refused it.  I have often been angry with myself since for not asking the man’s name, as I clung to the notion that he must be a particularly faithful servant, in which capacity I should like to have engaged him myself later on.