Nevertheless, I did not allow myself to be deterred from setting to work to find some lonely little house with a garden, for which I still longed.  In the excursions I repeatedly undertook for this purpose I was frequently accompanied not only by Weisheimer but also by Dr. Stadl, the young lawyer who at Schott’s house had proposed the charming toast which I have already mentioned.  He was an extraordinary man, and I could only explain his very excitable nature by the fact that he was a passionate gambler at the roulette tables in Wiesbaden.  He it was who had introduced me to another friend, a practised musician, Dr. Schuler from Wiesbaden.  With both these gentlemen I now weighed all the possibilities of acquiring, or at least of discovering, my little castle for the future.  On one occasion we visited Bingen with this object, and ascended the celebrated old tower there in which the Emperor Henry IV. was imprisoned long ago.  After going for some distance up the rock on which the tower was built, we reached a room on the fourth storey occupying the entire square of the building, with a single projecting window looking out upon the Rhine.

I recognised this room as the ideal of everything I had imagined in the way of a residence for myself.  I thought I could arrange for the necessary smaller apartments in the flat by means of curtains, and thus prepare for myself a splendid place of refuge for ever.  Stadl and Schuler thought it possible they might help me in the fulfilment of my wishes, as they were both acquainted with the proprietor of this ruin.  Shortly afterwards, in fact, they informed me that the owner had no objection to letting me this large room at a low rent, but at the same time they pointed out the utter impracticability of carrying out my plan; nobody, they said, would be either able or willing to act as my servant there, for, amongst other things, there was no well, and the only water obtainable was from a cistern lying at a frightful depth down in the keep, and even this was not good.  Under such circumstances it did not require more than one such obstacle to deter me from the pursuit of such an extravagant scheme.  I had a similar experience with a property in Rheingau belonging to Count Schonborn.  My attention had been drawn to it, because it was unoccupied by the proprietor.  Here I certainly found a number of empty rooms, out of which I should have been able to arrange something suitable for my purpose.  After obtaining further details from the land agent, who wrote on my behalf to Count Schonborn, I had to content myself with a refusal.