The house-officer, an extremely kind and good-tempered man, had been commissioned by the Count to take me to my assigned apartment, which was a single chamber, but very large and bright. The table-setter had the commission to provide the proper care for my apartment, and to provide me the necessary service, for which I gave me monthly a gratuity of my own free will; thus I found him very attentive to every task. The furniture of the chamber, which certainly dated from the beginnings of the seventeenth century, was now restored to genuine rococo pieces, to their already lost honor.

The Count, enticed by the beautiful fall, was still in the country. I also took advantage of the beautiful weather, mounting Pegasus, and frolicking in the regions of fantasy to my heart's content.

I began the second part of my life, now entirely devoted to art, with “Gellert's Busslied” for voice and piano. This song soon appeared as op. 27 by Kühnel in Leipzig. It was followed by “Four Italian canzonets for a voice with pianoforte”, provided also with German and Czech texts by Professor W.A. Swoboda1, which appeared as op. 28 by Joh. Hoffmann in Prague.

Because I only dedicated the mornings to composition, I could immerse myself in art, entirely undisturbed.

In the afternoons the house-officer frequently visited me, and told me many things that had to do with events affecting the family of the Count Buquoy, among which the visions of spirits, which some of the members of the household mentioned, were not to be forgotten. As has been said: the cashier was a good man, but he was really not capable of interesting conversation; the slow flow of his speech, free of all emphasis, could perhaps have made him an exceptional hypnotist, if it were not for the fact that the absurdities that appeared now and then would dispel the approaching sleep. I still remember vividly how he wellmeaningly advised me never to walk on the diagonals in my room, but only back and forth next to the walls, so as not to disturb her Excellence the Countess, who lived beneath me, by the shaking and clattering of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling of her room - an admonition which I entirely did not understand.