BISMARCK TO FRAU VON ARNIM.
Reinfeld, 15th October, 1856.
It looks as if I never was to reach Kröchlendorf. Harry will no doubt have told you how I intended to do so. I should already have been with you, but last week my poor little Marie was seized with some kind of chicken-pox, and so I could not well leave Johanna until the symptoms were declared. She is still as variegated as a trout, but decidedly better. I wanted to set off to-day for Passow direct, but yesterday had a letter from ——, by which he lets me know that he wants to see me by the 18th at ——. As a diplomatist I can not refuse to meet our trustiest companion, and one of the Olympian deities of our Frankfurt Pantheon. If I receive no letter from Berlin in between, I hope to rest in your sororal arms by the 19th. Should I be able to get away from —— on the evening of the 18th, I shall leave by the early train from Stettin. If I can not do this, I still hope to reach Stettin by the twelve o’clock train, if the postillions can be got to a trot. But do not wait dinner for me.
THE SAME TO THE SAME.
Frankfurt, 26th Nov., 1856.
Bernhard will have told you by what unexpected chain of infantine disease and royal mandates I have been deranged in my chronological calculations, and how ——, who has claims upon my ideas of the service, also abridged my lecture, so that it happened, a few hours before we were about to set out for Kröchlendorf, all together, that I had to announce to the male as well as the female Bernhard that I could only escort them as far as Passow. At that frontier of the Uckermark I met ——, and in Angermünde we were joined by ——, so that I was gradually prepared, by ministerial conferences and three hours of smokelessness, for my Berlin strait-waistcoat. It seemed as if I was never to get to Kröchlendorf. I had plenty of time and desire to do so, after the terminations of the Berlin marriage festivities, and only after a conference with —— did I decide first to go to Reinfeld, and on my return, to you, in order to stop a week with him there; because he only got his holiday in October, and our arrangement was that I should come hither with him about the 15th, and return to Berlin about the 22d. On the 11th my child was taken ill, at first severely; then I had to attend to official parade. Then I was summoned to his Majesty at Berlin, where, on the 25th of October, I found myself early enough. And now I am here, have only seen the sun twice in the last month, and every day I say to myself that it is impossible in November to live without wife and children. From sheer ennui I give dinner parties. In the evening one rout succeeds another, and I shall soon begin to gamble if Johanna and the children do not occupy this vacuum. She thought of starting from Reinfeld on Saturday the 22d, but on the 20th wrote me a plaintive letter about cold and snow, which I received on the 23d. Since then I have no idea whether she is on the other side of the Gollenberg or this side of the Randow. I begged her generally to inform you of her confinement in Berlin beforehand, and to let you know from Cöslin by telegraph when she would actually arrive there. The last time I lived in —— very fairly, but it appeared to me this youthful undertaking must either not have taken place, or already been “over.” If Johanna should by accident be in Berlin, greet her from me. Perhaps I shall get there by Saturday. I am summoned to the Upper Chamber, but the contents do not assure me whether His Majesty wishes me to be there myself personally, or only desires to see his most humble servant en bloc. In the latter case, I should not consider myself called to leave my important business, and the stove in the red study, to sit up to the neck in snow at Halle, and next heighten the effect of the White Saloon by a flying costume under the rubric of “People, nobility, detectives, and priests.” I expect an answer from Berlin about this, as to whether I am wanted as an ornament or a coadjutor. In the latter case I should reach Berlin early on Saturday. I should be very glad on that occasion to see you, as some recompense for Kröchlendorf; otherwise, I am glad to remain away from Berlin, and receive my own folks here.
TO FRAU VON ARNIM.
Frankfurt (without date.)