After supping with my friends, I settled in the carriage. As was his habit, the coachman drove the horses at full pelt, and within a few minutes I was already outside the city. Parting from one who has become essential to every minute of our existence is difficult, even for a short time. Parting is difficult. But blessed is he who is able to take his leave without smiling: love or friendship secure his comfort. As you pronounce “farewell,” you weep. But remember that you will return and let your tears at this imagining vanish like dew before the face of the sun. Blessed is he who weeps while hoping for a consoler;1 blessed is he who sometimes lives in the future; blessed is he who lives in a reverie. His being is enriched, his joys multiply, and tranquility preempts the gloom of sadness by placing images of rejoicing in the mirrors of the imagination.—I lie in the carriage. At last the din of the postal carriage’s bell, grown wearisome to my ears, summoned beneficent Morpheus. The sorrow of my departure, pursuing me into my deathlike state, represented me to my imagination on my own. I beheld myself in an expansive valley that had lost all pleasantness and variety of greenery owing to the heat of the sun. No source of freshness could be found here, there were no shady trees for the alleviation of the heat. Alone, abandoned, a hermit in the middle of nature! I shuddered. “Wretch,” I cried, “where are you? Where has everything that used to entice you vanished? Where is that which made your life pleasant? Could it be that the enjoyments of which you partook were a dream and fancy?” When the carriage hit the rut that happened to be in the road and woke me up it was a lucky stroke.—The carriage stopped. I lifted my head a bit. I see: in a deserted place stands a house of three stories. “What have we here?” I asked my driver. “The postal station.” “Where then are we?” “In Sofia.” He was meanwhile unharnessing the horses.