“Crown Prince Rudolf’s study”. Xylograph based on a drawing by Theodor Breidwiser, around 1877.

Rudolf was pained by the lack of understanding he received from his father: “Will the emperor take [my] bit of work seriously or will he browse it in the evening before he goes to bed and disregard it, consider it an eccentricity by a dreamer that does not fit the mold as I have often seen him do when looking at my entire way of living, thinking, and writing?”