[VIII.]
LETTERS DURING 1843, 1844, 1845.
Berlin, October 14, 1843.
Dear countess,[1] I arrived here this morning at six o'clock, having had for all rest twelve hours at Tilsit, from which must be deducted three hours given to the director of posts, to whom I had an introduction, and who did me so many services that I took tea with him in the evening. I arrived too late to dine there with Stieglitz, as we desired.
As long as I was on Russian soil I seemed to be still with you, and, without being exactly of a frolicking gaiety, you must have seen by my little letter from Taurogen that I had strength enough left to joke at my grief. But once on foreign soil, I can say nothing at all, except that this journey may be made to go to you, but not on quitting you. The aspect of Russian lands, without culture, without inhabitants, seemed to me natural; but the same sight seen in Prussia was horribly sad, and in keeping with the sadness that seized upon me. These barren tracts, this sterile soil, this cold desolation, this poverty, gripped and chilled me. I felt myself as much saddened as if there had been a contrast between my heart and Nature. Black grief swooped down upon me more and more heavily as physical fatigue increased. But do not pity me for taking the land journey, because these late storms must have made the navigation of the Baltic very bad.
I know how you are by the way I feel; I feel within me an immense void, which enlarges and deepens more and more, and from which nothing distracts me. So I have renounced going to Dresden; I do not feel the courage to go there. Holbein's Madonna will not be stolen between now and a year hence; the scene of the battle and the defiles of the Kulm will not change, and I shall have a reason, next May, to make the journey again with other ideas. Don't blame me for my faint-heartedness; nothing now pleases me in this journey, which did so please me in the salon of the Hotel Koutaitsof when you said, "You will go here—and there." I listened to you, I went, for it was you who told me. But now, how can I help it? far from you all is lifeless, without a soul. Next year, perhaps; but now, I have nothing but the gulf of my toil, and I go to it by the shortest way.
I slept this morning from seven o'clock till midday, a few tired, restless hours. I have breakfasted, dressed, and paid three visits: to Bresson, Redern, and Mendelssohn; and on my return I sit down to write to you, for to talk with you is the greatest, the most vital instinct of the moment.
I was interrupted by Comte Bresson, who came immediately to invite me to dinner for to-morrow, because he leaves, or rather his wife leaves, the day after; she goes before him to Madrid. As far as I can judge, he is a man of intelligence and great good sense; above all, without any species of pretension, which is rare in diplomatists, and I prize it much. He advised me to write a line to Humboldt, of whom I saw much in Paris at Gérard's and elsewhere; he will, no doubt, show me Potsdam. M. Bresson goes to Spain, and Salvandy to Turin.