TO FRAU VON ARNIM
SCHÖNHAUSEN, August 7th, 1850.
The fact is, this journey, and I see it more clearly the nearer it approaches, gives me a right of reversion on the new lunatic asylum, or at least a seat for life in the Second Chamber. I can already see myself on the platform of the Genthiner station; then both of us packed in the carriage, surrounded with all sorts of child's necessaries--an embarrassing company; Johanna ashamed to suckle the baby, which accordingly roars itself blue; then the passports, the inn; then at Stettin railway station with both bellowing monkeys; then waiting an hour at Angermünde for the horses; and how are we to get from Kröchlendorf to Külz? It would be perfectly awful if we had to remain for the night at Stettin. I did that last year with Marie and her squallings. I was in such a state of despair yesterday over all these visions that I was positively determined to give the whole thing up, and at last went to bed with the resolve at least to go straight through, without stopping anywhere; but what will one not commit for the sake of domestic peace? The young cousins, male and female, must become acquainted, and who knows when Johanna will see you again? She pounced upon me last night with the boy in her arms, and with all those wiles which formerly lost us Paradise; of course she succeeded in wringing my consent that everything should remain as before. I feel, however, that I am as one to whom fearful injustice is done, and I am certain that I shall have to travel next year with three cradles, wet-nurses, long-clothes, and counterpanes. I am now awake by six o'clock, and already in a gentle simmer of anger; I cannot get to sleep, owing to all the visions of traveling which my imagination paints in the darkest colors, even up to the "picnics" on the sandhills of Stolpmünde. And then if one were only paid for it! But to travel away the last remnants of a once handsome fortune with sucking babies!--I am very unhappy!
Well--Wednesday, then, in Gerswalde--I should have done probably better by driving over Passow, and you would not have had so far to Prenzlau as to G----. However, it is now a fait accompli, and the pain of selection is succeeded by the quiet of resignation. Johanna is somewhat nervous about her dresses, supposing you Boitzenburgers have company.
TO HIS WIFE
FRANKFORT, August 7th, 1851.
I wanted to write to you yesterday and to-day, but, owing to all the clatter and bustle of business, could not do so until now, late in the evening on my return from a walk through the lovely summer-night breeze, the moonlight, and the murmuring of poplar leaves, which I took to brush away the dust of the day's dispatches and papers. Saturday afternoon I drove out with Rochow and Lynar to Rüdesheim; there I took a boat, rowed out upon the Rhine, and swam in the moonlight, with nothing but nose and eyes out of the water, as far as the Mäusethürm near Bingen, where the bad bishop came to his end. It gives one a peculiar dreamy sensation to float thus on a quiet warm night in the water, gently carried down by the current, looking above on the heavens studded with the moon and stars, and on each side the banks and wooded hill-tops and the battlements of the old castles bathed in the moonlight, whilst nothing falls on one's ear but the gentle splashing of one's own movements. I should like to swim like this every evening. I drank some very fair wine afterwards, and then sat a long time with Lynar smoking on the balcony--the Rhine below us. My little New Testament and the star-studded heavens brought us on the subject of religion, and I argued long against the Rousseau-like sophism of his ideas, without, however, achieving more than to reduce him to silence. He was badly treated as a child by bonnes and tutors, without ever having known his parents. Later on, in consequence of much the same sort of education as myself, he picked up the same ideas in his youth; but is more satisfied and more convinced by them than ever I was.
Next day we took the steamer to Coblenz, stopped there an hour for breakfast, and came back the same way to Frankfort, where we arrived in the evening. I undertook this expedition with the intention of visiting old Metternich, who had invited me to do so at Johannisberg; but I was so much pleased with the Rhine that I preferred to make my way over to Coblenz and to postpone the visit. When you and I saw it we had just returned from the Alps, and the weather was bad; on this fresh summer morning, however, and after the dusty monotony of Frankfort, the Rhine has risen very considerably in my estimation. I promise myself complete enjoyment in spending a couple of days with you at Rüdesheim; the place is so quiet and rural, honest people and cheap living. We will hire a small boat and row at our leisure downwards, climb up the Niederwald and a castle or two, and return with the steamer. One can leave this place early in the morning, stay eight hours at Rüdesheim, Bingen, or Rheinstein, etc., and be back again in the evening. My appointment here appears now to be certain.