(Postmarked Berlin, June 1, '51.)
My Heart,—How good it is of you all that, directly after I had mailed my complaint of lack of news, there arrives such a shower of letters. A thousand thanks to your dear parents, and I shall answer dad tomorrow, when I am less hurried than today, for on this dear holiday, after a big dinner, I must still write some long despatches. I was at the French church today, where at least there was more congregation and devotion, and the minister was passable, too, but I cannot talk French with my dear, faithful Lord and Saviour; it seems to me ungrateful. For the rest, they sang pretty hymns, these insipid Calvinists, almost in the sweet Catholic tune which you always play. * * *
Your most faithful v.B.
Your letter had been opened again.
Frankfort, June 4, '51.
My Darling,—Were you not going to write to me any more? I was resolved even yesterday not to put pen to paper until I should have a letter from you, but, anyway, I will be good, and tell you that I am well and love you, even if you let your little inkstand dry up. I long exceedingly for you and the children, and for quiet, comfortable domesticity at Schönhausen or Reinfeld. As soon as I have finished my hitherto rather unimportant occupations, my empty lodgings, and the whole dreary world behind, face me, and I know not where to set my foot, for there is nothing which particularly attracts me. Day before yesterday I ate at Biberich, with the Duke of Nassau, the first fresh herrings and the first strawberries and raspberries of the season. It is certainly a delightful piece of earth along the Rhine, and I looked pensively from the castle windows over to the red cathedral of Mayence, which, almost four years ago, we both went to see very early in the morning, in times for which we were not then sufficiently grateful to God; I remembered how, on board the steamer, the blue hills before us, we passed by the Duke's handsome castle, without dreaming how and why I should stand there at the window this year, an old wig of a Minister before me, who unravelled his views on national polities, while I was thinking, with an occasional absent-minded "Quite so," of our trip of '47, and sought with my eyes the spot on the Mayence bridge whence you, in your little Geneva coat, embarked on the steamer; and then I thought of Geneva. * * * Countess Thun unfortunately left on Sunday for Tetschen, to spend three months with her father-in-law. She is a kindly lady, womanly and devout (Catholic, very), attributes which do not grace the women here in general; her husband gambles and flirts, I believe, more so than is agreeable to her. I hardly believe that you will like her, but she is one of the better specimens of women of the great world, even though that just proves to me that a woman of that world would not have been suitable for me; I like her to associate with, but not to marry. Perhaps, by comparing her with the others of her sort, you will learn to appreciate her. The gentlemen are unendurable. The moment I accost one he assumes a diplomatic countenance, and thinks of what he can answer without saying too much, and what he can write home concerning my utterances. Those who are not so I find still less congenial; they talk equivocally to the ladies, and the latter encourage them shamefully. It makes a less morbid impression on me if a woman falls thoroughly for once, but preserves a sense of shame at heart, than if she takes pleasure in such chatter; and I value the Countess Thun, because, despite the general fashion prevailing here, she knows how to keep decidedly clear of all that sort of thing. * * * Your most faithful v.B.
Frankfort, June 26, '51.
My Darling,—Today I have been suffering all day long from homesickness. I received your letter of Sunday early, and then I sat in the window and smelled the summer fragrance of roses and all sorts of shrubs in the little garden, and while so doing I heard one of your dear Beethoven pieces, played by an unknown hand on the piano, wafted over from some window opposite, distantly and in snatches, and to me it sounded prettier than any concert. I kept wondering why I must, after all, be so far away, for a long time, from you and the children, while so many people who do not love each other at all see one another from morning till night. It is now seven months since I received at Reinfeld the order to join the regiment; since then we have twice paid each other a hasty visit, and it will be eight or nine months before we shall be again united. It must, indeed, be the Lord's will, for I have not sought it, and when I am sorrowful it is a consolation to me that I did not speak a syllable in order to come here, and that ambition for outward pomp was not what led me to this separation. We are not in this world to be happy and to enjoy, but to do our duty; and the less my condition is a self-made one, the more do I realize that I am to perform the duties of the office in which I am placed. And I certainly do not wish to be ungrateful, for I am, nevertheless, happy in the knowledge of possessing so much that is dear, even if far away from here, and in the hope of a happy reunion. On the arrival of every letter from Reinfeld my first feeling is one of hearty gratitude for the unmerited happiness that I still have you in this world, and with every death of wife or child which I see in the newspaper the consciousness of what I have to lose comes forcibly home to me, and of what the merciful God has granted and thus far preserved to me. Would that gratitude therefor might so dispose my obstinate and worldly heart to receive the mercy of the Lord that it shall not be necessary for Him to chastise me in what I love, for I have greater fear of that than of any other evil. * * * In a few weeks it must be decided whether I shall be made Envoy here or stay at Reinfeld. The Austrians at Berlin are agitating against my appointment, because my black-and-white is not sufficiently yellow for them; but I hardly believe they will succeed, and you, my poor dear, will probably have to jump into the cold water of diplomacy; and the boy, unlucky wight that he is, will have a South-German accent added to his Berlin nativity. * * * As far as can now be foreseen, I shall not be able to get away from this galley for two or three weeks, for, including Silesia, that amount of time would probably be necessary for it. But much water will flow down the Main before then, and I am not worrying before the time comes. How I should like to turn suddenly around the bushy corner of the lawn and surprise all of you in the hall! I see you so plainly, attending to the children, covering up Midget, with sensible speeches, and father sitting at his desk smoking, the mayor beside him, and mammy bolt-upright on her sofa, by wretched light, one hand lying on the arm-rest, or holding Musée Français close before her eyes. God grant that at this moment everything at Reinfeld is going as smoothly as this. I have at last received a letter from Hans, one that is very charming, and, contrary to his custom, mysterious, in view of the post-office spies. You may imagine how Senfft writes to me under these circumstances. I received an unsigned letter from him the other day, out of which the most quick-witted letter-bandit would have been at a loss to decipher what he was driving at. If you occasionally come across some unintelligible notices at the tail end of the Observer, they will thus seem to you more puzzling still, and to the blockhead who breaks open this letter they will remain unintelligible, even if I tell you that they are a part of my correspondence. Only give me frequent tidings, my beloved heart, even if short ones, so that I may have the assurance that you are alive and well. A have picked the enclosed leaves for you in the garden of old Amschel Rothschild, whom I like, because he is simply a haggling Jew, and does not pretend to be anything else, and, at the same time, a strictly orthodox Jew, who touches nothing at his dinners, and eats only "undefiled" food. "Johann dage vid you some bread for de deers," he said his servant as he came out to show me his garden, in which there were some tame fallow deer. "Baron, dat blant costs me two thousand guilders, honor bride, two thousand guilders gash; I vill let you have it for one thousand or, if you vant it for nuddings, he shall bring id to your house. God knows I abbrejiate you highly, Baron; you are a nize man, a brave man." With that he is a little, thin gray imp of a man, the patriarch of his tribe, but a poor man in his palace, childless, a widower, cheated by his servants, and ill-treated by aristocratically Frenchified and Anglicized nephews and nieces who will inherit his treasures without gratitude and without love. Good-night, my angel. The clock is striking twelve; I want to go to bed and read chap. ii. of the Second Epistle of St. Peter. I am now doing that in a systematic way, and, when I have finished St. Peter, at your recommendation I shall read the He-brews, which I do not know at all as yet. May God's protection and blessing be with you all.
Your most faithful v.B.
Frankfort, July 3, 1851.