Minna was quite frightened when I announced my intention, and looked upon it as another attempt on my part to abandon my home.  I begged of her, however, to devote herself during my absence to the task of furnishing and arranging our new flat as comfortably as possible.  This, although small, was conveniently situated on the ground floor of the Vordern Escher Hauser im Zeltweg.  We had determined to move back to the town, on account of the great inconvenience of the situation of our present quarters, especially during winter time.  Everybody, of course, was astonished at the idea of my undertaking a water cure so late in the season.  Nevertheless, I soon succeeded in securing a fellow-patient.  I was not fortunate enough to get Herwegh, but Fate was kind in sending me Hermann Muller, an ex-lieutenant in the Saxon Guards, and a former lover of Schroder-Devrient, who proved a most cheerful and pleasant companion.  It had become impossible for him to maintain his position in the Saxon army, and although he was not exactly a political refugee, every career was closed to him in Germany, and yet he met with all the consideration of an exiled patriot when he came to Switzerland to try and make a fresh start in life.  We had seen a good deal of each other in my early Dresden days, and he soon felt at home in my house, where my wife always gave him a warm welcome.  I easily persuaded him to follow me shortly to Albisbrunnen to undergo a thorough treatment for an infirmity from which he was suffering.  I established myself there as comfortably as I could, and I looked forward to excellent results.  The cure itself was superintended in the usual superficial way by a Dr. Brunner, whom my wife, on one of her visits to this place, promptly christened the ‘Water Jew,’ and whom she heartily detested.  Early at five o’clock in the morning I was wrapped up and kept in a state of perspiration for several hours; after that I was plunged into an icy cold bath at a temperature of only four degrees; then I was made to take a brisk walk to restore my circulation in the chilly air of late autumn.  In addition I was kept on a water diet; no wine, coffee, or tea was allowed; and this regime, in the dismal company of nothing but incurables, with dull evenings only enlivened by desperate attempts at games of whist, and the prohibition of all intellectual occupation, resulted in irritability and overwrought nerves.  I led this life for nine weeks, but I was determined not to give in until I felt that every kind of drug or poison I had ever absorbed into my system had been brought to the surface.  As I considered that wine was most dangerous, I presumed that my system still contained many unassimilated substances which I had absorbed at various dinner-parties at Sulzer’s, and which must evaporate in profuse perspiration.  This life, so full of privations, which I led in rooms miserably furnished with common deal and the usual rustic appointments of a Swiss pension, awoke in me by way of contrast an insuperable longing for a cosy and comfortable home; indeed, as the year went on, this longing became a passionate desire.  My imagination was for ever picturing to itself the manner and style in which a house or a dwelling ought to be appointed and arranged, in order to keep my mind pleasantly free for artistic creation.