“Oh, my dear children, believe me, I share your feelings,” wrote Richard to Cäcilie and Eduard Avenarius on April 21, 1842:

In retrospect, Paris seemed to Minna to have been paradise in its purest form. She had left treasured friends and relatives behind there, and her thoughts were constantly of Cäcilie, her husband Eduard, and “dear, dear Paris.” Everything was transfigured in her memory. She had become especially fond of her nephew Max, Cäcilie’s son: “I want to kiss my dear little boy Max so much that he will wish his awful aunt eternal life with a thunderclap. I already have a little outfit ready for him that will be just to your taste—oh, God, if only the time were here where I could press you both to my heart!,” she wrote. Her yearnings offer evidence enough to disprove the frequent claims that Minna’s sole interests were financial security and a bourgeois environment. Three weeks later, she again wrote to Cäcilie:

While she was writing, a letter actually arrived from Cäcilie and Eduard that made both Minna and Richard burst into tears. Richard wrote back to them: