Volume 10 — THE LOVE LETTERS OF BISMARCK[2] TRANSLATED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHARLTON T. LEWIS

THE LOVE LETTERS OF BISMARCK[2] TRANSLATED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF CHARLTON T. LEWIS

Hôtel de Prusse, Stettin, (Not dated: Written about the end of December, 1846.)

TO HERR VON PUTTKAMER:

Most Honored Sir.—I begin this communication by indicating its content in the first sentence—it is a request for the highest thing you can dispose of in this world, the hand of your daughter. I do not conceal from myself the fact that I appear presumptuous when I, whom you have come to know only recently and through a few meetings, claim the strongest proof of confidence which you can give to any man. I know, however, that even irrespective of all obstacles in space and time which can increase your difficulty in forming an opinion of me, through my own efforts I can never be in a position to give you such guaranties for the future that they would, from your point of view, justify intrusting me with an object so precious, unless you supplement by trust in God that which trust in human beings cannot supply. All that I can do is to give you information about myself with absolute candor, so far as I have come to understand myself. It will be easy for you to get reports from others in regard to my public conduct; I content myself, therefore, with an account of what underlay that—my inner life, and especially my relations to Christianity. To do that I must take a start far back.

In earliest childhood I was estranged from my parents' house, and at no time became entirely at home there again; and my education from the beginning was conducted on the assumption that everything is subordinate to the cultivation of the intelligence and the early acquisition of positive sciences.

After a course of religious teaching, irregularly attended and not comprehended, I had at the time of my confirmation by Schleiermacher, on my sixteenth birthday no belief other than a bare deism, which was not long free from pantheistic elements. It was at about this time that I, not through indifference, but after mature consideration, ceased to pray every evening, as I had been in the habit of doing since childhood; because prayer seemed inconsistent with my view of God's nature; saying to myself: either God himself, being omnipresent, is the cause of everything—even of every thought and volition of mine—and so in a sense offers prayers to himself through me, or, if my will is independent of God's will, it implies arrogance and a doubt as to the inflexibility as well as the perfection of the divine determination to believe that it can be influenced by human appeals. When not quite seventeen years old I went to Göttingen University. During the next eight years I seldom saw the home of my parents; my father indulgently refrained from interference; my mother censured me from far away when I neglected my studies and professional work, probably in the conviction that she must leave the rest to guidance from above: with this exception I was literally cut off from the counsel and instruction of others. In this period, when studies which ambition at times led me to prosecute zealously—or emptiness and satiety, the inevitable companions of my way of living—brought me nearer to the real meaning of life and eternity, it was in old-world philosophies, uncomprehended writings of Hegel, and particularly in Spinoza's seeming mathematical clearness, that I sought for peace of mind in that which the human understanding cannot comprehend. But it was loneliness that first led me to reflect on these things persistently, when I went to Kniephof, after my mother's death, five or six years ago. Though at first my views did not materially change at Kniephof, yet conscience began to be more audible in the solitude, and to represent that many a thing was wrong which I had before regarded as permissible. Yet my struggle for insight was still confined to the circle of the understanding, and led me, while reading such writings as those of Strauss, Feuerbach, and Bruno Bauer, only deeper into the blind alley of doubt.

I was firmly convinced that God has denied to man the possibility of true knowledge; that it is presumption to claim to understand the will and plans of the Lord of the World; that the individual must await in submission the judgment that his Creator will pass upon him in death, and that the will of God becomes known to us on earth solely through conscience, which He has given us as a special organ for feeling our way through the gloom of the world. That I found no peace in these views I need not say. Many an hour have I spent in disconsolate depression, thinking that my existence and that of others is purposeless and unprofitable—perchance only a casual product of creation, coming and going like dust from rolling wheels.

About four years ago I came into close companionship, for the first time since my school-days, with Moritz Blankenburg, and found in him, what I had never had till then in my life, a friend; but the warm zeal of his love strove in vain to give me by persuasion and discussion what I lacked—faith. But through Moritz I made acquaintance with the Triglaf family and the social circle around it, and found in it people who made me ashamed that, with the scanty light of my understanding, I had undertaken to investigate things which such superior intellects accepted as true and holy with childlike trust. I saw that the members of this circle were, in their outward life, almost perfect models of what I wished to be. That confidence and peace dwelt in them did not surprise me, for I had never doubted that these were companions of belief; but belief cannot be had for the asking, and I thought I must wait submissively to see whether it would come to me. I soon felt at home in that circle, and was conscious of a satisfaction that I had not before experienced—a family life that included me, almost a home.

I was meanwhile brought into contact with certain events in which I was not an active participant, and which, as other people's secrets, I cannot communicate to you, but which stirred me deeply. Their practical result was that the consciousness of the shallowness and worthlessness of my aim in life became more vivid than ever. Through the advice of others, and through my own impulse, I was brought to the point of reading the Scriptures more consecutively and with resolute restraint, sometimes, of my own judgment. That which stirred within me came to life when the news of the fatal illness of our late friend in Cardemin tore the first ardent prayer from my heart, without subtle questionings as to its reasonableness. God did not grant my prayer on that occasion; neither did He utterly reject it, for I have never again lost the capacity to bring my requests to Him, and I feel within me, if not peace, at least confidence and courage such as I never knew before.

I do not know what value you will attach to this emotion, which my heart has felt for only two months; I only hope that it may not be lost, whatever your decision in regard to me may be—a hope of which I could give you no better assurance than by undeviating frankness and loyalty in that which I have now disclosed to you, and to no one else hitherto, with the conviction that God favors the sincere.

I refrain from any assurance of my feelings and purposes with reference to your daughter, for the step I am taking speaks of them louder and more eloquently than words can. So, too, no promises for the future would be of service to you, since you know the untrustworthiness of the human heart better than I, and the only security I offer for the welfare of your daughter lies in my prayer for God's blessing. As a matter of history I would only observe that, after I had seen fräulein Johanna repeatedly in Cardemin, after the trip we made together this summer, I have only been in doubt as to whether the attainment of my desires would be reconcilable with the happiness and peace of your daughter, and whether my self-confidence was not greater than my ability when I believed that she could find in me what she would have a right to look for in her husband. Very recently, however, together with my reliance on God's grace, the resolution which I now carry out has also become fixed in me, and I kept silent when I saw you in Zimmerhausen only because I had more to say than I could express in conversation. In view of the importance of the matter and the great sacrifice which it will involve for you and your wife in separation from your daughter, I can scarcely hope that you will give a favorable decision at once, and only beg that you will not refuse me an opportunity for explanation upon any considerations which might dispose you to reject my suit, before you utter a positive refusal.

There is doubtless a great deal that I have not said, or not said fully enough, in this letter, and I am, of course, ready to give you exact and faithful information as to everything you may desire to know; I think I have told what is most important.

I beg you to convey to your wife my respectful compliments, and to accept kindly the assurance of my love and esteem.

BISMARCK.

Schönhausen, February 1, '47.

I had only waited for daylight to write you, my dear heart, and with the light came your little green spirit-lamp to make my lukewarm water seethe—though this time it found it ready to boil over. Your pity for my restless nights at present is premature, but I shall give you credit for it. The Elbe still lies turbid and growling in her ice-bonds: the spring's summons to burst them is not yet loud enough for her. I say to the weather: "If you would only be cold or warm! But you stay continually at freezing-point, and at this rate the matter may long drag on." For the present my activity is limited to sending out, far and wide, from the warm seat at the writing-table, diverse conjurations, whose magic starts quantities of fascines, boards, wheelbarrows, etc., from inland towards the Elbe, perchance to serve as a prosaic dam in restraint of the poetical foaming of the flood. After I had spent the morning in this useful rather than agreeable correspondence, my resolve was to chat away comfortably through the evening with you, beloved one, as though we were sitting on the sofa in the red drawing-room; and with sympathetic attention to my desire the mail kept for my enjoyment precisely at this gossiping hour your letter, which I should have received by good rights day before yesterday. You know, if you were able to decipher my inexcusably scrawled note [3] from Schlawe, how I struck a half-drunken crowd of hussar officers there, who disturbed me in my writing. In the train I had, with my usual bad luck, a lady vis-à-vis, and beside me two very stout, heavily fur-clad passengers, the nearer of whom was a direct descendant of Abraham into the bargain, and put me in a bitter humor against all his race by a disagreeable movement of his left elbow.

I found my brother in his dressing-gown, and he employed the five minutes of our interview very completely, according to his habit, in emptying a woolsack full of vexatious news about Kniephof before me: disorderly inspectors, a lot of damaged sheep, distillers drunk every day, thoroughbred colts (the prettiest, of course) come to grief, and rotten potatoes, fell in a rolling torrent from his obligingly opened mouth upon my somewhat travel-worn self. On my brother's account I must affect and utter some exclamations of terror and complaint, for my indifferent manner on receiving news of misfortune vexes him, and as long as I do not express surprise he has ever new and still worse news in stock. This time he attained his object, at least in my inner man, and when I took my seat next to the Jewish elbow in green fur I was in a right bad humor; especially the colt distressed me—an animal as pretty as a picture and three years old.

Not before getting out of doors did I become conscious of the ingratitude of my heart, and the thought of the unmerited happiness that had become mine a fortnight earlier again won the mastery in me. In Stettin I found drinking, gambling friends. William Ramin took occasion to say, apropos of a remark about reading the Bible, "Tut! In Reinfeld I'd speak like that, too, if I were in your place, but to believe you can impose on your oldest acquaintances is amusing." I found my sister very well and full of joy about you and me. She wrote to you, I think, before she received your letter. Arnim is full of anxiety lest I become "pious." He kept looking at me all the time earnestly and thoughtfully, with sympathetic concern, as one looks at a dear friend whom one would like to save and yet almost gives up for lost. I have seldom seen him so tender. Very clever people have a curious manner of viewing the world. In the evening (I hope you did not write so late) I drank your health in the foaming grape-juice of Sillery, in company with half a dozen Silesian counts, Schaffgotsch and others, at the Hôtel de Rome, and convinced myself Friday morning that the ice on the Elbe was still strong enough to bear my horse's weight, and that, so far as the freshet was concerned, I might today be still at your blue or black side[4] if other current official engagements had not also claimed my presence. Snow has fallen very industriously all day long, and the country is white once more, without severe cold. When I arrived it was all free from snow on this side of Brandenburg; the air was warm and the people were ploughing; it was as though I had traveled out of winter into opening spring, and yet within me the short springtime had changed to winter, for the nearer I came to Schönhausen the more oppressive I found the thought of entering upon the old loneliness once more, for who knows how long. Pictures of a wasted past arose in me as though they would banish me from you. I was on the verge of tears, as when, after a school vacation, I caught sight of Berlin's towers from the train.

The comparison of my situation with that in which I was on the 10th, when I traveled the same line in the opposite direction; the conviction that my solitude was, strictly speaking, voluntary, and that I could at any time, albeit through a resolve smacking of insubordination and a forty hours' journey, put an end to it, made me see once more that my heart is ungrateful, dismayed, and resentful; for soon I said to myself, in the comfortable fashion of the accepted lover, that even here I am no longer lonely, and I was happy in the consciousness of being loved by you, my angel, and, in return for the gift of your love, of belonging to you, not merely in vassalage, but with my inmost heart. On reaching the village I felt more distinctly than ever before what a beautiful thing it is to have a home—a home with which one is identified by birth, memory, and love. The sun shone bright on the stately houses of the villagers, and their portly inmates in long coats and the gayly dressed women in short skirts gave me a much more friendly greeting than usual; on every face there seemed to be a wish for my happiness, which I invariably converted into thanks to you. Gray-haired Bellin's[5] fat face wore a broad smile, and the trusty old soul shed tears as he patted me paternally on the back and expressed his satisfaction; his wife, of course, wept most violently; even Odin was more demonstrative than usual, and his paw on my coat-collar proved incontestably that it was muddy weather. Half an hour later Miss Breeze was galloping with me on the Elbe, manifestly proud to carry your affianced, for never before did she so scornfully smite the earth with her hoof. Fortunately you cannot judge, my heart, in what a mood of dreary dulness I used to reenter my house after a journey; what depression overmastered me when the door of my room yawned at me and the mute furniture in the silent apartments confronted me, bored like myself. The emptiness of my existence was never clearer to me than in such moments, until I seized a book—though none of them was sad enough for me—or mechanically engaged in any routine work.

My preference was to come home at night, so that I could go to sleep immediately.[6] Ach, Gott!—and now? What a different view I take of everything—not merely that which concerns you as well, and because it concerns you, or will concern you also (although I have been bothering myself for two days with the question where your writing-desk will stand), but my whole view of life is a new one, and I am cheerful and interested even in my work on the dike and police matters. This change, this new life, I owe, next to God, to you, ma très chère, mon adorée Jeanneton—to you who do not heat me occasionally, like an alcohol flame, but work in my heart like warming fire. Some one is knocking.

Visit from the co-director, who complains of the people who will not pay their school taxes. The man asks me whether my fiancée is tall.

"Oh yes; rather."

"Well, an acquaintance of mine saw you last summer with several ladies in the Harz Mountains, and you preferred to converse with the tallest, that must have been your fiancée."

The tallest woman in your party was, I fancy, Frau von Mittelstädt. * * * The Harz! The Harz!

After a thorough consultation with Frau Bellin, I have decided to make no special changes here for the present, but to wait until we can hear the wishes of the lady of the house in the matter, so that we may have nothing to be sorry for. In six months I hope we shall know what we have to do.

It is impossible as yet to say anything definite about our next meeting. Just now it is raining; if that continues the Elbe may be played out in a week or two, and then. * * * Still no news whatever about the Landtag. Most cordial greetings and assurances of my love to your parents, and the former—the latter, too, if you like—to all your cousins, women friends, etc. What have you done with Aennchen?[7] My forgetting the Versin letters disturbs me; I did not mean to make such a bad job of it. Have they been found Farewell, my treasure, my heart, consolation of my eyes.

Your faithful BISMARCK.

Another picture, a description of a storm in the Alps, which catches my eye as I turn over the pages of the book, and pleases me much:

"The sky is changed, and such a change! O night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder; not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now has found a tongue, And Jura answers through her misty shroud— Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud.

And this is in the night:—most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and fair delight— A portion of the tempest and of thee! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black, and now the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth."

On such a night the suggestion comes uncommonly near to me that I wish to be a sharer in the delight, a portion of tempest, of night;[8] mounted on a runaway horse, to dash down the cliffs into the falls of the Rhine, or something similar. A pleasure of that kind, unfortunately, one can enjoy but once in this life. There is something intoxicating in nocturnal storms. Your nights, dearest, I hope you regard, however, as sent for slumber, not for writing.[9] I see with regret that I write English still more illegibly than German. Once more, farewell, my heart. Tomorrow noon I am invited to be the guest of Frau Brauchitsch, presumably so that I may be duly and thoroughly questioned about you and yours. I'll tell them as much as I please. Je t'embrasse mille fois.

Your own

B.

Schönhausen, February 7, '47.

My Heart,—Just returned through a wild, drifting snow-storm from an appointment (which unfortunately was occasioned by the burning out of a poor family). I have warmed myself at your dear letter; in the twilight, even, I recognized your "Right honorable." All my limbs are twitching with eagerness to be off to Berlin again today, and to characterize the dikes and floods in terms of the unutterable Poberow[10] dialect. The inexorable thermometer stands at 2 below freezing-point, accompanied with howling wind and large flakes, as though it would soon rain. What is duty! Compare Falstaff's expressions touching honor. At any rate, I shall write you straightway, even if I ruin myself in postage, and no sensible thoughts find their way through the débris of the fire that still has possession of my imagination. After reading your last remark I have just lit my cigar and stirred the ink. First, like a business-man, to answer your letter. I begin with a request smacking of the official desk—namely, that when you write you will, if you please, expressly state what letters you have received from me, giving their dates; otherwise one is uncertain as to the regular forwarding of them, as I am in doubt whether you have received my first letter, which I wrote the day of my arrival here, while on a business trip, in Jerichow, if I mistake not, on very bad paper, Friday, the 29th of January. I am very thankful that you do not write in the evening, my love, even if I am myself to suffer thereby. Every future glance into your gray-blue-black eye with its large pupil will compensate me for possibly delayed or shortened letters.

If I could only dream of you when you do of me! But recently I do not dream at all—shockingly healthy and prosaic; or does my soul fly to Reinfeld in the night and associate with yours? In that case it can certainly not dream here; but it ought to tell about its journey in the morning, whereas the wayward thing is as silent about its nocturnal employments as though it, too, slept like a badger.

Your reminder of the bore, Fritz, with the letter-pouch transports me to Reinfeld and makes me long still more eagerly for the time when I can once again hug my black Jeannette for my good-morning at the desk. About the letter with the strange address, evidently in a woman's hand, I should like to tell you a romantic story, but I must destroy every illusion with the explanation that it comes from a man who used to be a friend of mine, who, if I do not mistake, once in Kniephof took a copy of an Italian address that I received. Again a curtain behind which one fancies there is all the poetry in the world, and finds the flattest prose. (I once saw in Aix-la-Chapelle, while strolling about the stage, the Princess of Eboli, after I had just spent my sympathy upon her as she lay overwhelmed and fainting at the queen's feet in one of the scenes, eating bread and butter and cracking bad jokes behind the scenes.) That cousin Woedtke is fond of me, and that the Versin sausage and letter affair is all right, I am glad to learn.

I need not assure you that I have the most heartfelt sympathy for the sufferings of your good mother; I hope rest and summer will affect her health favorably, and that she will recover after a while, with the joy of seeing her children happy. When she is here she shall not have any steps to go up to reach you, and shall live directly next to you.

Why do you wear mournful black in dress and heart, my angel? Cultivate the green of hope that today made right joyous revelry in me at sight of its external image, when the gardener placed the first messengers of spring, hyacinths and crocus, on my window-ledge. Et dis-moi donc, pourquoi es-tu paresseuse? Pourquoi ne fais-tu pas de musique? I fancied you playing c-dur when the hollow, melting wind howls through the dry twigs of the lindens, and d-moll when the snow-flakes chase in fantastic whirls around the corners of the old tower, and, after their desperation is spent, cover the graves with their winding-sheet. Oh, were I but Keudell, I'd play now all day long, and the tones would bear me over the Oder, Rega, Persante, Wipper—I know not whither. A propos de paresse, I am going to permit myself to make one more request of you, but with a preface. When I ask you for anything I add (do not take it for blasphemy or mockery) thy will be done—your will, I mean; and I do not love you less, nor am I vexed with you for a second if you do not fulfil my request. I love you as you are, and as you choose to be. After I have, by way of preface, said so much with inmost, unadorned truth, without hypocrisy or flattery, I beg you to pay some attention to French—not much, but somewhat—by reading French things that interest you, and, what is not clear to you, make it clear with the dictionary. If it bores you, stop it; but, lest it bore you, try it with books that interest you, whatever they may be—romances or anything else. I do not know your mother's views on such reading, but in my opinion there is nothing that you cannot read to yourself. I do not ask this for my own sake, for we will understand each other in our mother tongue, but in your intercourse with the world you will not seldom find occasions when it will be disagreeable or even mortifying if you are unfamiliar with French. I do not know, indeed, to what degree this is true of you, but reading is in any case a way to keep what you have and to acquire more. If it pleases you, we shall find a way for you to become more fluent in talking, than, as you say, you are now. If you do not like it, rely with entire confidence on the preface to my request.

I wrote to poor Moritz yesterday, and, after reading your description of his sadness, my letter lies like a stone on my conscience, for, like a heartless egotist, I mocked his pain by describing my happiness, and in five pages did not refer to his mourning by even a syllable, speaking of myself again and again, and using him as father-confessor. He is an awkward comforter who does not himself feel pain sympathetically, or not vividly enough. My first grief was the passionate, selfish one at the loss I had sustained; for Marie,[11] so far as she is concerned, I do not feel it, because I know that she is well provided for, but that my sympathy with the suffering of my warmest friend, to whom I owe eternal thanks, is not strong enough to produce a word of comfort, of strong consolation from overflowing feeling, that burdens me sorely. Weep not, my angel; let your sympathy be strong and full of confidence in God; give him real consolation with encouragement, not with tears, and, if you can, doubly, for yourself and for your thankless friend whose heart is just now filled with you and has room for nothing else. Are you a withered leaf, a faded garment? I will see whether my love can foster the verdure once more, can brighten up the colors. You must put forth fresh leaves, and the old ones I shall lay between the pages of the book of my heart so that we may find them when we read there, as tokens of fond recollection. You have fanned to life again the coal that under ashes and débris still glowed in me; it shall envelop you in life-giving flames.

Le souper est servi, the evening is gone, and I have done nothing but chat with you and smoke: is that not becoming employment for the dike-captain? Why not?

A mysterious letter from —— lies before me. He writes in a tone new for him; admits that he perceives that he did many a wrong to his first wife; did not always rightly guide and bear with her weakness; was no prop to the "child," and believes himself absolved by this severe castigation. Qu'est-ce qu'il me chante? Has the letter undergone transformation in the Christian climate of Reinfeld, or did it leave the hand of this once shallow buffoon in its present form? He asserts, moreover, that he lives in a never dreamed of happiness with his present wife, whose acquaintance he made a week before the engagement, and whom he married six weeks after the same event: a happiness which his first marriage has taught him rightly to prize. Do you know the story of the French tiler who falls from the roof, and, in passing the second story, cries out, "Ça va bien, pourvu que ça dure?" Think, only, if we had been betrothed on the 12th of October '44, and, on November 23d, had married: What anxiety for mamma!

The English poems of mortal misery trouble me no more now; that was of old, when I looked out into nothing—cold and stiff, snow-drifts in my heart. Now a black cat plays with it in the sunshine, as though with a rolling skein, and I like to see its rolling. I will give you, at the end of this letter, a few more verses belonging to that period, of which fragmentary copies are still preserved, as I see, in my portfolio. You may allow me to read them still; they harm me no more. Thine eyes have still (and will always have) a charm for me.[12] Please write me in your next letter about the uncertain marriage-plans. I believe, by Jove![12] that the matter is becoming serious. Until the day is fixed, it still seems to me as though we had been dreaming; or have I really passed a fortnight in Reinfeld, and held you in these arms of mine? Has Finette been found again? Do you remember our conversation when we went out with her in leash—when you, little rogue, said you would have "given me the mitten" had not God taken pity on me and permitted me at least a peep through the keyhole of His door of mercy! That came into my mind when I was reading I Cor. vii. 13 and 14 yesterday.

[Illustration: PRINCE BISMARCK FRANZ VON LENBACH]

A commentator says of the passage that, in all relations of life, Christ regards the kingdom of God as the more powerful, victorious, finally overcoming all opposition, and the kingdom of darkness as powerless, falling in ruins ever more and more. Yet, how do most of you have so little confidence in your faith, and wrap it carefully in the cotton of isolation, lest it take cold from any draught of the world; while others are vexed with you, and proclaim that you are people who esteem yourselves too holy to come into contact with publicans, etc. If every one should think so who believes he has found truth—and many serious, upright, humble seekers do believe they find it elsewhere, or in another form—what a Pennsylvania solitary-confinement prison would God's beautiful earth become, divided up into thousands and thousands of exclusive coteries by insuperable partitions! Compare, also, Rom. xiv. 22 and xv. 2; also, particularly, I Cor. iv. 5; viii. 2; ix. 20; also xii. 4 and the following; further, xiii. 2; all in the First Ep. to the Cor., which seems to me to apply to the subject. We talked, during that walk, or another one, a great deal about "the sanctity of doing good works." I will not inundate you with Scripture passages in this connection, but only tell you how splendid I find the Epistle of James. (Matt. xxv. 34 and following; Rom. ii. 6; II Cor. v. 10; Rom. ii. 13; I Epistle of John iii. 7, and countless others.) It is, indeed, unprofitable to base arguments upon separate passages of Scripture apart from their connection; but there are many who are honestly striving, and who attach more importance to passages like James ii. 14 than to Mark xvi. 16, and for the latter passage offer expositions, holding them to be correct, which do not literally agree with yours. To what interpretation does the word "faith" not lend itself, both when taken alone and in connection with that which the Scriptures command us "to believe," in every single instance where they employ the word! Against my will, I fall into spiritual discussion and controversies. Among Catholics the Bible is read not at all, or with great precaution, by the laity; it is expounded only by the priests, who have concerned themselves all their lives with the study of the original sources. In the end, all depends upon the interpretation. Concert in Bütow amuses me: the idea of Bütow is, to my mind, the opposite of all music.

I have been quite garrulous, have I not? Now I must disturb some document-dust, and sharpen my pen afresh to the police-official style, for the president of the provincial court and the government. Could I but enclose myself herewith, or go along in a salmon-basket as mail-matter! Till we meet again, dearest black one.[13] I love you, c'est tout dire.

BISMARCK.

(I am forgetting the English verses):

"Sad dreams, as when the spirit of our youth Returns in sleep, sparkling with all the truth And innocence, once ours, and leads us back In mournful mockery over the shining track Of our young life, and points out every ray Of hope and peace we've lost upon the way!"

By Moore, I think; perhaps Byron.

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

Cordial remembrances to your parents and the Reddentin folk.

Schönhausen, February 23, '47.

My Angel!—I shall not send this letter on its way tomorrow, it's true, but I do want to make use of the few unoccupied minutes left me to satisfy the need I am conscious of every hour, to communicate with you, and forthwith to compose a "Sunday letter" to you once more. Today I have been "on the move" all day long. "The Moorish king rode up and down," unfortunately not "through Granada's royal town," but between Havelberg and Jerichow, on foot, in a carriage, and on horseback, and got mighty cold doing so—because, after the warm weather of the last few days, I had not made the slightest preparation to encounter five degrees below freezing, with a cutting north wind, and was too much in haste or too lazy to mount the stairs again when I noticed the fresh air. During the night it had been quite endurable and superb moonlight. A beautiful spectacle it was, too, when the great fields of ice first set themselves massively in motion, with explosions like cannon-shots, shattering themselves against one another; they rear, shoving over and under each other; they pile up house-high, and sometimes build dams obliquely across the Elbe, in front of which the pent stream rises until it breaks through them with rage. Now are they all broken to pieces in the battle—the giants—and the water very thickly covered with ice-cakes, the largest of which measure several square rods, which it bears out to the free sea like shattered chains, with grumbling, clashing noises. This will go on so for about three days more, until the ice that comes from Bohemia, which passed the bridge at Dresden several days ago, has gone by. (The danger is that the ice-cakes by jamming together may make a dam, and the stream rise in front of this—often ten to fifteen feet in a few hours.) Then comes the freshet from the mountains which floods the bed of the Elbe, often a mile in width, and is dangerous in itself, owing to its volume. How long that is to last we cannot tell beforehand. The prevailing cold weather, combined with the contrary sea wind, will certainly retard it. It may easily last so long that it will not be worth while to go to Reinfeld before the 20th. If only eight days should be left me, would you have me undertake it, nevertheless?—or will you wait to have me without interruption after the 20th, or perhaps 18th? It is true that fiancé and dike-captain are almost incompatible; but were I not the latter, I have not the slightest idea who would be. The revenues of the office are small, and the duties sometimes laborious; the gentlemen of the neighborhood, however, are deeply concerned, and yet without public spirit. And even if one should be discovered who would undertake it for the sake of the title, which is, strange to say, much desired in these parts, yet there is no one here (may God forgive me the offence) who would not be either unfit for the business or faint-hearted. A fine opinion, you will think, I have of myself, that I only am none of this; but I assert with all of my native modesty that I have all these faults in less degree than the others in this part of the country—which is, in fact, not saying much.

I have not yet been able to write to Moritz, and yet I must send something to which he can reply, inasmuch as my former letter has not as yet brought a sign of life. Or have you crowded me out of his heart, and do you fill it alone? The little pale-faced child is not in danger, I hope. That is a possibility in view of which I am terrified whenever I think of it—that as a crowning misfortune of our most afflicted friend, this thread of connection with Marie might be severed. But she will soon be a year and a half old, you know; she has passed the most dangerous period for children. Will you mope and talk of warm hands and cold love if I pay a visit to Moritz on my next journey, instead of flying to Reinfeld without a pause as is required of a loving youth?

That you are getting pale, my heart, distresses me. Do you feel well otherwise, physically, and of good courage? Give me a bulletin of your condition, your appetite, your sleep. I am surprised also that Hedwig Dewitz has written to you—such a heterogeneous nature, that can have so little in common with you. She was educated with my sister for several years in Kniephof, although she was four or five years the elder of the two. Either she loves you—which I should find quite easy to explain—or has other prosaic intentions. I fancy that she, as is quite natural, does not feel at home in her father's house; she has, therefore, always made her home with others for long periods and with satisfaction.

In your letter which lies before me I come upon "self-control" again. That is a fine acquisition for one who may profit by it, but surely to be distinguished from compulsion. It is praiseworthy and amiable to wean one's self from tasteless or provoking outbursts of feeling, or to give to them a more ingratiating form; but I call it self-constraint—which makes one sick at heart—when one stifles his own feelings in himself. In social intercourse one may practise it, but not we two between ourselves. If there be tares in the field of our heart, we will mutually exert ourselves so to dispose of them that their seed cannot spring up; but, if it does, we will openly pull it up, but not cover it artificially with straw and hide it—that harms the wheat and does not injure the tares. Your thought was, I take it, to pull them up unaided, without paining me by the sight of them; but let us be in this also one heart and one flesh, even if your little thistles sometimes prick my fingers. Do not turn your back on them nor conceal them from me. You will not always take pleasure in my big thorns, either—so big that I cannot hide them; and we must pull at them both together, even though our hands bleed. Moreover, thorns sometimes bear very lovely flowers, and if yours bear roses we may perhaps let them alone sometimes. "The best is foe to the good"—in general, a very true saying; so do not have too many misgivings about all your tares, which I have not yet discovered, and leave at least a sample of them for me. With this exhortation, so full of unction, I will go to sleep, although it has just struck ten, for last night there was little of it; the unaccustomed physical exercise has used me up a bit, and tomorrow I am to be in the saddle again before daylight. Very, very tired am I, like a child.

Schönhausen, March 14, 1847.

Jeanne la Méchante!—What is the meaning of this? A whole week has passed since I heard a syllable from you, and today I seized the confused mass of letters with genuine impatience—seven official communications, a bill, two invitations, one of which is for a theatre and ball at Greifenberg, but not a trace of Zuckers (the Reinfeld post-office) and "Hochwohlgeboren." [14] I could not believe my eyes, and had to look through the letters twice; then I set my hat quite on my right ear and took a two hours' walk on the highway in the rain, without a cigar, assailed by the most conflicting sentiments—"a prey to violent emotions," as we are accustomed to say in romances. I have got used to receiving my two letters from you regularly every week, and when once we have acquired the habit of a thing we look upon that as our well-won right, an injury to which enrages us. If I only knew against whom I should direct my wrath—against Böge, against the post-office, or against you, la chatte la plus noire, inside and out. And why don't you write? Are you so exhausted with the effort you made in sending two letters at a time on Friday of last week? Ten days have gone by since then—time enough to rest yourself. Or do you want to let me writhe, while you feast your eyes on my anxiety, tigress! after speaking to me in your last letters about scarlet and nervous fevers, and after I had laid such stress on my maxim of never believing in anything bad before it forces itself upon me as incontestable? We adhere firmly to our maxims only so long as they are not put to the test; when that happens we throw them away, as the peasant did his slippers, and run off on the legs that nature gave us. If you have the disposition to try the virtue of my maxims, then I shall never again give utterance to any of them, lest I be caught lying; for the fact is that I do really feel somewhat anxious. With fevers in Reddis, to let ten days pass without writing is very horrible of you, if you are well. Or can it be that you did not receive on Thursday, as usual, my letter that I mailed on Tuesday in Magdeburg, and, in your indignation at this, resolved not to write to me for another week? If that is the state of affairs, I can't yet make up my mind whether to scold or laugh at you. The worst of it now is that, unless some lucky chance brings a letter from you directly to Stolp, I shall not have any before Thursday, for, as I remember it, there is no mail leaving you Saturday and Sunday, and I should have received Friday's today. If you have not sworn off writing altogether and wish to reply to this letter, address me at Naugard. * * *

Had another visitor, and he stayed to supper and well into the night—my neighbor, the town-counsellor Gärtner. People think they must call on each other Sunday evening, and can have nothing else to do. Now that all is quiet in the night, I am really quite disturbed about you and your silence, and my imagination, or, if not that, then the being whom you do not like to have me name, shows me with scornful zeal pictures of everything that could happen. Johanna, if you were to fall sick now, it would be terrible beyond description. At the thought of it, I fully realize how deeply I love you, and how deeply the bond that unites us has grown into me. I understand what you call loving much. When I think of the possibility of separation—and possible it is still—I should never have been so lonely in all my dreary, lonely life.

What would Moritz's situation be, compared with that?—for he has a child, a father, a sister, dear and intimate friends in the neighborhood. I have no one within forty miles with whom I should be tempted to talk more than that which politeness demands; only a sister—but a happily married one with children is really one no longer, at least for a brother who is single. For the first time I am looking the possibility straight in the eyes that you might be taken away from me, that I might be condemned to inhabit these empty rooms without a prospect of your sharing them with me, with not a soul in all the surrounding region who would not be as indifferent to me as though I had never seen him. I should, indeed, not be so devoid to comfort in myself as of old, but I should also have lost something that I used not to know—a loving and beloved heart, and at the same time be separated from all that which used to make life easy in Pomerania through habit and friendship. A very egotistical line of thought and way of looking at things this discloses, you will say. Certainly, but Pain and Fear are egotists, and, in cases like that referred to, I never think the deceased, but only the survivors, are to be pitied. But who speaks of dying? All this because you have not written for a week; and then I have the assurance to lecture you for gloomy forebodings, etc.! If you had only not spoken of the deadly fevers in your last letter. In the evening I am always excited, in the loneliness, when I am not tired. Tomorrow, in bright daylight, in the railway carriage, I shall perhaps grasp your possible situation with greater confidence.

Be rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer. All the angels will guard you, my beloved heart, so that we shall soon meet again with joy. Farewell, and salute your parents. I wrote your father this morning. Your faithful BISMARCK.

Berlin, Friday, May 15, '47.

Dear Heart,—Your father gave me your letter this morning at the session, and in consequence I hardly know what subject was discussed, or, at least, lacked energy to form a clear, conscious conception of it. My thoughts were in Reinfeld and my heart full to overflowing of care. I am submissive in all that may happen, but I cannot say that I should be submissive with gladness. The chords of my soul become relaxed and toneless when I think of all possibilities. I am not, indeed, of that self-afflicting sort that carefully and artfully destroys its own hope and constructs fear, and I do not believe that it is God's will to separate us now—for every reason I cannot believe it; but I know that you are suffering, and I am not with you, and yet if I were there, I could perhaps contribute something to your tranquillity, to your serenity, were it only that I should ride with you—for you have no one else for that. It is so contrary to all my views of gallantry, not to speak of my sentiments for you, that any power whatever should keep me here when I know that you are suffering and I could help and relieve you; and I am still at war with myself to determine what my duty is before God and man. If I am not sooner there, then it is fairly certain that I shall arrive in Reinfeld with your father at Whitsuntide, probably a week from tomorrow. The cause of your illness may lie deeper, or perhaps it is only that the odious Spanish flies have affected you too powerfully. Who is this second doctor you have called in? The frequent changing of doctors, and, on one's own authority, using between-times all sorts of household remedies, or remedies prescribed for others, I consider very bad and wrong. Choose one of the local doctors in whom you have the most confidence, but keep to him, too; do what he prescribes and nothing else, nothing arbitrary; and, if you have not confidence in any of the local men, we will both try to carry through the plan of bringing you here, so that you may have thorough treatment under the direction of Breiers, or some one else. The conduct of your parents in regard to medical assistance, the obstinate refusal of your father, and, allied to that, your mother's arbitrary changing and fixed prejudices, in matters which neither of them understand, seem to me, between ourselves, indefensible. He to whom God has intrusted a child, and an only child at that, must employ for her preservation all the means that God has made available, and not become careless of them through fatalism or self-sufficiency. If writing tires you, ask your mother to send us news. Moreover, it would seem to me very desirable if one of your friends could be prevailed upon to go to you until you are better. Whether a doctor can help you or not—forgive me, but you cannot judge of that by your feelings. God's help is certainly decisive, but it is just He who has given us medicine and physician that, through them, His aid may reach us; and to decline it in this form is to tempt Him, as though the sailor at sea should deprive himself of a helmsman, with the idea that God alone can and will give aid. If He does not help us through the means He has placed within our reach, then there is nothing left to do but to bow in silence under His hand. If you should be able to come to Zimmerhausen after Whitsuntide, please write to that effect beforehand if possible. If your illness should become more serious, I shall certainly leave the Landtag, and even if you are confined to your bed I shall be with you. At such a moment I shall not let myself be restrained by such questions of etiquette—that is my fixed resolve. You may be sure of this, that I have long been helping you pray that the Lord may free you from useless despondency and bestow upon you a heart cheerful and submissive to God—and upon me, also; and I have the firm confidence that He will grant our requests and guide us both in the paths that lead to Him. Even though yours may often go to the left around the mountain, and mine to the right, yet they will meet beyond.

The salt water has already gone from here. If you are too weak for riding, then take a drive every day. When you are writing to me, and begin to feel badly in the least, stop immediately; give me only a short bulletin of your health, even if it is but three lines, for, thank Heaven, words can be dispensed with between us—they cannot add or take away anything, since our hearts look into each other, eye to eye, to the very bottom, and though here and there, behind a fold, some new thing is discovered, a strange thing it is not. Dear heart, what stuff you talk (excuse my rudeness) when you say I must not come if I would rather stop in Zimmerhausen or Angermünde at Whitsuntide! How can I take pleasure anywhere while I know that you are suffering, and moreover, am uncertain in what degree? With us two it is a question, not of amusing and entertaining, but only of loving and being together, spiritually, and, if possible, corporeally; and if you should lie speechless for four weeks—sleep, or something else—I would be nowhere else, provided nothing but my wish were to decide. If I could only "come to your door," I would still rather be there than with my dear sister; and the sadder and sicker you are, so much the more. But the door will not separate me from you, however ill you may be. That is a situation in which the slave mutinies against his mistress. * * *

Your faithful B.

Berlin, Tuesday Morning, May 18, '47.

Dearest,—The last letters from Reinfeld permit me to hope that your illness is not so threatening at the moment as I feared from the first news, although I am continually beset by all possible fears about you, and thus am in a condition of rather complicated restlessness. * * * My letter in which I told you of my election you have understood somewhat, and your dear mother altogether, from a point of view differing from that which was intended. I only wanted to make my position exactly clear to you, and the apologies which to you seemed perhaps forced, as I infer from your mother's letter, you may regard as an entirely natural outflow of politeness. That I did not stand in need of justification with you I very well know; but also that it must affect us both painfully to see our fine plans cancelled. It was my ardent wish to be a member of the Landtag; but that the Landtag and you are fifty miles apart distressed me in spite of the fulfilment of my wish. You women are, and always will be, unaccountable, and it is better to deal with you by word of mouth than by writing. * * * I have ventured once or twice on the speaker's platform with a few words, and yesterday raised an unheard-of storm of displeasure, in that, by a remark which was not explained clearly enough touching the character of the popular uprising of 1813, I wounded the mistaken vanity of many of my own party, and naturally had all the halloo of the opposition against me. The resentment was great, perhaps for the very reason that I told the truth in applying to 1813 the sentence that any one (the Prussian people) who has been thrashed by another (the French) until he defends himself can make no claim of service towards a third person (our King) for so doing. I was reproached with my youth and all sorts of other things. Now I must go over before today's session to see whether, in printing my words, they have not turned them into nonsense. * * *

Yours forever, B.

Berlin, Friday, May 21, '47.

Très chère Jeanneton,—When you receive this letter you will know that I am not to visit you in the holidays. I shall not offer "apologies," but reasons why it is not to be. I should miss certainly four, and probably five, meetings of the estates, and, according to the announcement we have received, the most important proceedings are to be expected at the coming meetings. There it may depend upon one vote, and it would be a bad thing if that were the vote of an absentee; moreover, I have succeeded in acquiring some influence with a great number, or, at least, with some delegates of the so-called court party and the other ultra-conservatives from several provinces, which I employ in restraining them so far as possible from bolting and awkward shying, which I can do in the most unsuspected fashion when once I have plainly expressed my inclination. Then, too, I have some money affairs to arrange, for which I must make use of one of the holidays. The Landtag will either be brought to a close on the 7th of June—and in that case I should stay here until that date—or it will continue in session until all the matters have been arranged, in which event I should stay till after the decision of the important political questions which are now imminent and shall be less conscientious about all the insignificant petitions that follow after, and await their discussion in Reinfeld. It will, besides, be pleasanter for you and the mother not to have us both—the father and me—there at one time, but relieving each other, so that you may be lonely for a shorter time. * * * Your father will tell you how I stirred up the hornet's-nest of the volunteers here lately, and the angry hornets came buzzing to attack me; on the other hand, I had as compensation that many of the older and more intelligent people drew near to me—people I did not know at all—and assured me that I had said nothing but the truth, and that was the very thing that had so incensed the people. But I must take the field now; it is ten o'clock. Please ask your father to write immediately about your health. I should so much like to hear the opinion of another person besides your mother. I am all right—only much excited. Farewell, and God guard you.

Yours altogether and forever, B.

Berlin, May 26, '47.

Dearest,— * * * If I were only through with the Landtag and the delivery of Kniephof, could embrace you in health, and retire with you to a hunting-lodge in the heart of green forest and the mountains, where I should see no human face but yours! That is my hourly dream; the rattling wheel-work of political life is more obnoxious to my ears every day.—Whether it is your absence, sickness, or my laziness, I want to be alone with you in contemplative enthusiasm for nature. It may be the spirit of contradiction, which always makes me long for what I have not. And yet, I have you, you know, though not quite at hand; and still I long for you. I proposed to your father that I should go with him; we would immediately have our banns published and be married, and both come here. An apartment for married people is empty in this house, and here you could have had sensible physicians and every mortal help. It seemed to him too unbecoming. To you, too? It seems to me still the most sensible thing of all, if you are only strong enough for the trip. If the Landtag should continue longer than to the 6th of June—which I still hope it will not—let us look at the plan more carefully. * * *

Your faithful B.

Schönhausen, Friday, May 28, '47.

My Poor Sick Kitten,— * * * In regard to your illness, your father's letter has calmed my anxiety somewhat as to the danger, but yours was so gloomy and depressed that it affected me decidedly. My dear heart, such sadness as finds expression there is almost more than submission to God's will: the latter cannot, in my opinion, be the cause of your giving up the hope, I might say the wish, that you may be better, physically, and experience God's blessing here on earth as long as may be in accordance with His dispensation. You do not really mean it, either—do you, now?—when, in a fit of melancholy, you say that nothing whatever interests you genuinely, and you neither grieve nor rejoice. That smacks of Byron, rather than of Christianity. You have been sick so often in your life, and have recovered—have experienced glad and sad hours afterwards; and the old God still lives who helped you then. Your letter stirred in me more actively than ever the longing to be at your side, to fondle you and talk with you. * * *

I do not agree with you in your opinion about July, and I would urge you strongly, too, on this point to side with me against your parents. When a wife, you are as likely to be sick as when a fiancée—and will be often enough, later; so why not at the beginning, likewise? I shall be with you as often as I am free from pressing engagements, so whether we are together here or in Reinfeld makes no difference in the matter. We do not mean to marry for bright days only: your ill-health seems to me an utterly frivolous impediment. The provisional situation we are now in is the worst possible for me. I scarcely know any longer whether I am living in Schönhausen, in Reinfeld, in Berlin, or on the train. If you fall sick, I shall be a sluggard in Reinfeld all the autumn, or however long our marriage would be postponed, and cannot even associate with you quite unconstrainedly before the ceremony. This matter of a betrothed couple seventy miles apart is not defensible; and, especially when I know you are ailing, I shall take the journey to see you, of course, as often as my public and private affairs permit. It seems to me quite necessary to have the ceremony at the time already appointed; otherwise I should be much distressed, and I see no reason for it. Don't sell Brunette just now; you will ride her again soon. I must be in Berlin at noon for a consultation about plans for tomorrow. Farewell. God strengthen you for joy and hope.

Your most faithful B.

Tomorrow I'll send you a hat.[15]

Berlin, Sunday, May 30, '47.

Très Chère Jeanneton,—Your letter of day before yesterday, which I have just received, has given me profound pleasure and poured into me a refreshing and more joyous essence: your happier love of life is shared by me immediately. I shall begin by reassuring you about your gloomy forebodings of Thursday evening. At the very time when you were afflicted by them I was rejoicing in the happiness I had long missed, of living once more in a comfortable Schönhaus bed, after I had suffered for weeks from the furnished-apartments couch in Berlin. I slept very soundly, although with bad dreams—nightmares—which I ascribed to a late and heavy dinner, inasmuch as the peaceful occupations of the previous day—consisting in viewing many promising crops and well-fed sheep, together with catching up with all sorts of police arrangements relating to dike, fire, and roads—could not have occasioned them. You see how little you can depend upon the maternal inheritance of forebodings. Also in regard to the injurious effects of the Landtag excitement upon my health, I can completely reassure you. I have discovered what I needed—physical exercise—to offset mental excitement and irregular diet. Yesterday I spent in Potsdam, to be present at the water carnival—a lively picture. The great blue basins of the Havel, with the splendid surroundings of castles, bridges, churches, enlivened with several hundred gayly decorated boats, whose occupants, elegantly dressed gentlemen and ladies, bombard one another lavishly with bouquets when they can reach each other in passing or drawing up alongside. The royal pair, the whole court, Potsdam's fashionable people, and half of Berlin whirled in the skein of boats merrily, pell-mell; royalists and liberals all threw dry or wet flowers at the neighbor within reach. Three steamboats at anchor, with musical choruses, constituted the centre of the ever-changing groups. I had the opportunity to salute, hurriedly and with surprise, and throw flowers at, many acquaintances whom I had not seen for a long time. My friend Schaffgotsch is passionately fond of walking, and he was responsible for our returning to the railway station on foot—a distance of almost three miles—at such a pace as I had not kept up in a long while. After that I slept splendidly until nine, and am in a state of physical equilibrium today such as I have not enjoyed for some time. As the rather dusty promenades in the Thiergarten do not give me enough of a shaking-up in the time that I have available for that purpose, Mousquetaire will arrive here tomorrow, so that he, with his lively gallop, may play the counterpart to the tune that politics is dancing in my head. My plan about Berlin and the wedding immediately, etc., was certainly somewhat adventurous when you look at it in cold blood, but I hope there will be no change from July. If I am to be tormented, as you say, with an "unendurable, dispirited, nervous being," it is all the same in the end whether this torment will be imposed upon me by my fiancée or—forgive the expression—by my wife. In either case I shall try to bear the misfortune with philosophical steadfastness; for it is to be hoped that it will not be so bad that I must dig deeper and seek Christian consolation for it.

Your very faithful B.

Berlin, July 4, '47.

Juaninina,—Happily, I have left Schönhausen behind me, and do not expect to enter it again without you, mon ange. Only some business matters detain me here, which I cannot attend to today because it is Sunday; but I confidently anticipate starting for Angermünde tomorrow at four, and accordingly, unless the very improbable event occurs that I am detained outrageously in Kniephof, shall arrive in Schlawe on Thursday. * * * Farewell, my heart. This is probably the last post-marked paper that you will receive from your Bräutigam[16] (I hate the expression). Our banns were cried today for the first time in Schönhausen. Does that not seem strange to you But I had learned your given names so badly that I could mention only Johanna Eleonore: the other six you must teach me better. Farewell, my heart. Many salutations to the parents.

Your very faithful B.

My Dear,—I believe I can now reassure you most completely as to the safety of the members of the Landtag. The Landtag was opened today, minus King and minus cheers, with quite calm discussion. In a few words I uttered my protest against the thanks and exultation that were voted to the King, without hostilities becoming overt. Ten thousand men of the city militia were posted for our protection, but not even a slight disturbance occurred at the palace. I could be with you tomorrow, as there is no session, if I had ordered a carriage to meet me at Genthin this evening. But as the whole affair apparently will come to an end this week, perhaps as early as Thursday, I was too stingy to hire a carriage. Brauchitsch was taken violently ill again last evening. * * * Give cordial remembrances to your mother, and be of good courage. I am much calmer than I was: with Vincke one heart and one soul.

Your faithful B.

April 2, '48, Sunday Evening.

I fear, my dear heart, the letter I wrote you last evening reached the post-office so late, through an oversight, that you will not receive it today, and not before tomorrow with this; and it pains me to think that you were disappointed in your hope when the mail was delivered, and now (9 o'clock in the evening) are perhaps troubled with disquietude of all sorts about me. I have spent a tiresome day, tramping the pavement, smoking and intriguing. Do not judge of the few words I spoke yesterday from the report in the Berlin Times. I shall manage to bring you a copy of the speech, which has no significance except as showing that I did not wish to be included in the category of certain venal bureaucrats who turned their coat with contemptible shamelessness to suit the wind. The impression it made was piteous, while even my most zealous opponents shook my hand with greater warmth after my declaration. I have just come from a great citizens' meeting, of perhaps a thousand people, in the Milenz Hall, where the Polish question was debated very decorously, very good speeches were made, and on the whole the sentiment seemed to turn against the Poles, especially after a disconsolate Jew had arrived, straight from Samter, who told terrible stories about the lawless excesses of the Poles against the Germans; he himself had been soundly beaten. * * *

Just for my sake do not alarm yourself if each mail does not bring you a letter from me. There is not the slightest probability that a hair of our heads will be touched, and my friends of all kinds overrun me, to share their political wisdom with me, so that I began a letter of one-quarter sheet to Malle this morning at 9, and could not finish before 3. I am living in comfort and economy with Werdeck, only rather far away, in consequence of which I already feel the pavement through my soles. Cordial remembrances to the mother and the Bellins. I am writing on the table d'hôte table of the Hôtel des Princes, and a small salad has just been brought for my supper.

Your very faithful B. April 3, '48.

Schönhausen, August 21, '48. 8.30 P.M.

To HERR VON PUTTKAMER, AT REINFELD, NEAR ZUCKERS, POMERANIA.

Dear Father,—You have just become, with God's gracious help, the grandfather of a healthy, well-formed girl that Johanna has presented me with after hard but short pains. At the moment mother and child are doing as well as one could wish. Johanna lies still and tired, yet cheerful and composed, behind the curtain; the little creature, in the meantime, under coverlets on the sofa, and squalls off and on. I am quite glad that the first is a daughter, but if it had been a cat I should have thanked God on my knees the moment Johanna was rid of it: it is really a desperately hard business. I came from Berlin last night, and this morning we had no premonition of what was to come. At ten in the morning Johanna was seized with severe pains after eating a grape, and the accompanying symptoms led me to put her at once to bed, and to send in haste to Tangermünde, whence, in spite of the Elbe, Dr. Fricke arrived soon after 12. At 8 my daughter was audible, with sonorous voice. This afternoon I sent Hildebrand off to fetch nurse Boldt from Berlin in a great hurry. I hope you will not postpone your journey now; but earnestly beg dear mother not to make the trip in an exhausting manner. I know, of course, that she has little regard for her own health, but just for Johanna's sake you must take care of yourself, dear mother, so that she may not be anxious on your account. Fricke pleases us very much—experienced and careful. I do not admit visits: Bellin's wife, the doctor, and I attend to everything. Fricke estimates the little one at about nine pounds in weight. Up to the present time, then, everything has gone according to rule, and for that praise and thanks be to the Lord. If you could bring Aennchen with you that would make Johanna very happy.

22. Morning.—It is all going very well, only the cradle is still lacking, and the little miss must camp meanwhile on a forage-crib. May God have you and us in his keeping, dear parents.

Until we meet again, presently. B.

Have the kindness to attend to the announcements, save in Berlin and Reddentin, in your neighborhood: Seehof, Satz, and so forth. Johanna sends cordial greetings. She laments her daughter's large nose. I think it no larger than it has a right to be.

Berlin, Saturday, 11 p. m. September 23, '48.

To FRAU VON BISMARCK, SCHÖNHAUSEN, NEAR JERICHOW.

My Pet!—Today at last I have news of your condition, and am very grateful to mother for the letter. * * * I am beginning to be really homesick for you, my heart, and mother's letter today threw me into a mood utterly sad and crippling: a husband's heart, and a father's—at any rate, mine in the present circumstances—does not fit in with the whirl of politics and intrigue. On Monday, probably, the die will be cast here. Either the ministry will be shown to be weak, like its predecessors, and sink out—and against this I shall still struggle—or it will do its duty, and then I do not for a moment doubt that blood will flow on Monday evening or on Tuesday. I should not have believed that the democrats would be confident enough to take up the gage of battle, but all their behavior indicates that they are bent on it. Poles, Frankfort men, loafers, volunteers—all sorts of riffraff are again at hand. They count on the defection of the troops, apparently misled by the talk of individual discontented gabblers among the soldiers; but I think they will make a great mistake. I personally have no occasion to await the thing here, and so to tempt God by asking him to protect me in perils that I have no call to seek. Accordingly, I shall betake my person to a place of safety not later than tomorrow. If nothing important occurs on Monday, on Tuesday I shall reach you; but, if the trouble begins, I should still like to stay near the King. But there you may (in an aside I say "unfortunately") assume with confidence that there will be no danger. You received no letter from me today, because I sent a report about the society to Gärtner, and you will learn from him that I am all right. You will receive this tomorrow, and I shall write again on Monday. Send horses for me on Tuesday. God bless and guard you, my sweetheart.

Your faithful B.

(Postmark, Berlin, November 9, '48.)

My Dearest,—Although I am confident that I shall be with you in person a few hours after this letter, I want to inform you immediately that everything is quiet till now. I go to Potsdam at nine, but must post the letter here now, as otherwise it will not reach you today. Our friends have been steadfast till now, but I cannot take courage yet to believe in anything energetic. I still fear, fear, and the weather is unfavorable, too. Above all, you must not be afraid of anything, if I should stay away today by any chance. The K. may send for me, or some one else in Potsdam earnestly wish that I should stay there to advise upon further measures, the trains may be delayed because the carriages are required for soldiers, and other things of the sort. Then, courage and patience, my heart, in any event. The God who makes worlds go round can also cover me with his wings. And in P. there is no danger anyhow. So expect me in the evening; if I happen not to come, I shall be all right nevertheless. Cordial remembrances to our cross little mother.

Your most faithful B.

Potsdam, November 10, '48.

My Angel,—Please, please do not scold me for not coming today either; I must try to put through some more matters in relation to the immediate future. At two this afternoon all Wrangel's troops will reach Berlin, disarm the flying corps, maybe, take the disaffected deputies from the Concertsaal, and make the city again a royal Prussian one. It is doubtful whether they will come to blows in the process. Contrary to our expectations, everything remained quiet yesterday; the democrats seem to be much discouraged. * * *

Your v.B.

Potsdam, November 14, '48.

My Dear Pet,—Long sleep can certainly become a vice. Senfft has just waked me at nine o'clock, and I cannot yet get the sand out of my eyes. It is quiet here. Yesterday it was said to be the intention to serenade the Queen (on her birthday) with mock music; one company posted there sufficed to make the audacious people withdraw in silence. Berlin is in a state of siege, but as yet not a shot fired. The disarming of the city militia goes on forcibly and very gradually. The meeting in the Schützenhaus was dispersed by soldiers yesterday; six men who were unwilling to go were thrown out. Martial law will be proclaimed over there today. My friend Schramm has been arrested. That Rob. Blum, Fröbel, Messenhauser, have been shot in Vienna, you already know from the newspapers. Good-by, you angel; I must close. Many remembrances to all. The peasants of the neighborhood have declared to the King that if he has need of them he should just call them: that they would come with weapons and supplies to aid his troops, from the Zauch-Belzig-Teltow, the Havelland, and other districts. Mention that in Schönhausen, please, so that it may go the rounds.

Your v.B.

Potsdam, Thursday Morning, November 16, '48.

Dear Nanne!—I did not get your very dear, nice letter of Tuesday morning until yesterday afternoon, but none the less did I right fervently rejoice and take comfort in it, because you are well, at least in your way, and are fond of me. There is no news from here except that Potsdam and Berlin are as quiet as under the former King, and the surrender of arms in B. continues without interruption, with searching of houses, etc. It is possible that there may be scenes of violence incidentally—the troops secretly long for them—but on the whole the "passive resistance" of the democrats seems to me only a seasonable expression for what is usually called fear. Yesterday I dined with the King. The Queen was amiable in the English fashion. The enclosed twig of erica I picked from her sewing-table, and send it to keep you from being jealous. * * *

If a letter from the Stettin bank has arrived, send it to me immediately, please, marked, "To be delivered promptly." If I do not receive it before day after tomorrow, I shall return home, but must then go to Stettin at the beginning of next week. So let horses be sent for me on Saturday afternoon; this evening I unfortunately cannot go to Genthin, because I expect Manteuffel here. * * *

The democrats are working all their schemes in order to represent the opinion of the "people" as hostile to the King; hundreds of feigned signatures. Please ask the town-councillor whether there are not some sensible people in Magdeburg, who care more for their neck, with quiet and good order, than for this outcry of street politicians, and who will send the King a counter-address from Magdeburg. I must close. Give my best regards to mamma, and kiss the little one for me on the left eye. Day after tomorrow, then, if I do not get the Stettin letter sooner. Good-by, my sweet angel. Yours forever, v.B. Schönhausen, July 18, '49.

My Pet,— * * * I wanted to write you in the evening, but the air was so heavenly that I sat for two hours or so on the bench in front of the garden-house, smoked and looked at the bats flying, just as with you two years ago, my darling, before we started on our trip. The trees stood so still and high near me, the air fragrant with linden blossoms; in the garden a quail whistled and partridges allured, and over beyond Arneburg lay the last pink border of the sunset. I was truly filled with gratitude to God, and there arose before my soul the quiet happiness of a family life filled with love, a peaceful haven, into which a gust of wind perchance forces its way from the storms of the world-ocean and ruffles the surface, but its warm depths remain clear and still so long as the cross of the Lord is reflected in them. Though the reflected image be often faint and distorted, God knows his sign still. Do you give thanks to Him, too, my angel; think of the many blessings He has conferred upon us, and the many dangers against which He has protected us, and, with firm reliance on His strong hand, confront the evil spirits with that when they try to affright your sick fancy with all sorts of images of fear. * * *

Your most faithful v.B.

Brandenburg, July 23, '49.

My Beloved Nanne!—I have just received your short letter of Friday, which reassures me somewhat, as I infer from it that our little one has not the croup, but the whooping-cough, which is, indeed, bad, but not so dangerous as the other. You, poor dear, must have worried yourself sick. It is very fortunate that you have such good assistance from our people and the preacher, yet are you all somewhat lacking in confidence, and increase each other's anxiety instead of comforting one another. Barschall has just told me that all of his children have had this croupy cough—that it was endemic in Posen in his time; his own and other children were attacked by it repeatedly in the course of a few days; that every family had an emetic of a certain kind on hand in the house, and by that means overcame the enemy easily every time, and without permanent consequences for the child. Be comforted, then, and trust in the Lord God; He does, indeed, show us the rod that He has ready for us, but I have the firm belief that He will put it back behind the mirror. As a child I, too, suffered from whooping-cough to the extent of inflammation of the lungs, and yet entirely outgrew it. I have the greatest longing to be with you, my angel, and think day and night about you and your distress, and about the little creature, during all the wild turmoil of the elections. * * *

Here in Brandenburg the party of the centre is decidedly stronger than ours; in the country districts I hope it is the other way, yet the fact cannot be overlooked. It is incredible what cock-and-bull stories the democrats tell the peasants about me; in fact, one from the Schönhausen district, three miles from us, confided to me yesterday that, when my name is mentioned among them, a regular shudder goes through them from head to foot, as though they should get a couple of "old-Prussian broadsword strokes" laid across their shoulders. As an opponent said recently, at a meeting, "Do you mean to elect Bismarck Schönhausen, the man 'who, in the countryman's evening prayer, stands hard by the devil'?" (From Grillparzer's Ahnfrau.) And yet I am the most soft-hearted person in the world towards the common people. On the whole, my election here in these circumstances seems very doubtful to me; and as I do not believe I shall be elected in the other place either, when I am not there personally, we may live together quietly the rest of the summer, if it be God's will, and I will pet you into recovery from your fright about the child, my darling. Have no anxiety whatever about my personal safety; one hears nothing of the cholera here except in a letter from Reinfeld. The first rule to observe, if it should come nearer to you, is to speak of it as little as possible; by speaking, one always augments the fear of others, and fear of it is the easiest bridge on which it can enter the human body. * * *

God guard you and your child, and all our house.

Your most faithful

v.B.

It is better not to leave the doors all open constantly, for the child often gets shock from the draught, when one is opened, before you can prevent it.

(Postmark, Berlin, August 8, '49.)

My Love,—I sent you a letter this morning, and have just received yours, in reply to which I will add a few more words touching the wet-nurse. If any one besides you and father and mother already knows about the matter, in the house or outside, then tell her the truth unhesitatingly, for in that case it will not stay hidden. If the matter is still known to yourselves alone, let it continue so, but then keep watch on the mail-bag, lest she learn of it unexpectedly. The wet-nurse's sister here is unwilling to have it told to her. I shall look her up today and speak with her. But if you do not wish to keep it secret any longer, when once the child is rid of her cough, you should at any rate look about you for a wet-nurse or woman who, in case of necessity, can take Friederike's place immediately, if the effect is such that the child cannot stay with her. I shall get the sister to give me a letter to her, in which the story will be told exactly and soothingly; this I shall send to you, so that you may make use of it in case of need; that, I think, is the best way she can learn of it. To tell her first that her child is sick, and so forth, I do not consider a good plan, for anxiety has a worse effect than the truth. God will graciously bring us out of this trouble. He holds us with a short rein lest we should become self-confident, but He will not let us fall. Good-by, my best-of-all; pray and keep your head up.

Your very faithful

v.B.

Berlin, August 11, '49.

Mon Ange,—I went to see the wet-nurse's kinsfolk, and there learned that the fiancé had written to her last Wednesday and revealed all to her; so the matter will go as God directs. If you chanced to intercept the letter, and on receipt of this have not yet delivered it, please delay it until my next arrives. I could not find the fiancé himself, and directed him to come to me this evening, and shall write you what I learn from him. If Friederike knows everything already, my wishes will reach you too late; otherwise I should like, if in accordance with medical opinion, not to have the wet-nurse sent away altogether, but only relieved from service for a few hours or days; if, however, there are scruples on that point, it can't be done, of course. From my many doubts, you will see that I cannot decide the matter very well at this distance. Act quite in accordance with the advice of your mother and the other experienced friends. I give my views, merely, not commands. * * * Be content with these lines for today; be courageous and submissive to God's will, my darling; all will surely go well. Cordial remembrances to the parents.

Your most faithful

v.B.

Berlin, Friday. (Postmark, August 17, '49.)

Dearest Nanne,— * * * Your last letter, in which you inform me of the happy solution of the wet-nurse difficulty, took a real load off my heart; I thanked God for His mercy, and could almost have got drunk from pure gayety. May His protection extend henceforward, too, over you and the little darling. I am living with Hans here at the corner of Taubenstrasse, three rooms and one alcove, quite elegant, but narrow little holes; Hans' bed full of bugs, but mine not as yet—I seem not to be to their taste. We pay twenty-five rix-dollars a month, together. If there were one additional small room, and not two flights of stairs, I could live with you here, and Hans could get another apartment below in this house. But, as it is, it would be too cramped for us. I have talked with the fiancé of the wet-nurse, a modest-looking person. He spoke of her with love, and declared in reply to my question that he certainly is willing to marry her. What he wrote about the "white pestilence" is nonsense; no such sickness exists, least of all in Berlin. The cholera is fast disappearing. I have not heard a word more about it since I came here; one sees it only in newspaper reports. Isn't our mammy jealous because, according to the paper, I have been in company with "strikingly handsome" Englishwomen? Lady Jersey was really something uncommon, such as is usually seen only in keepsakes. I would have paid a rix-dollar admission if she had been exhibited for money. She is now in Vienna. For the rest, I have not had a letter from you this long time; my last news comes from Bernhard, who left you a week ago today. God has upheld you meantime, I trust, my angel. It is possible that a letter from you is here. The delivery is always rather irregular: sometimes the letter-carrier brings them, sometimes they are delivered at the Chamber postal station. I will go immediately and inquire if anything is there; then I will take a bath, and return at least ten calls that have been paid me. It is a misery that now the people always receive one—one loses a terrible amount of time at it…. Hans is still inclined to treat me tyrannically, but I resist, and have been so far successful that I sleep as long as I please, whereat the coffee grows cold, however, as he is obstinately bent on not breakfasting alone. So, too, he will not go to bed if I do not go at the same time, but sleeps, just like my little Nanne, on the sofa…. Now, good-by my much-beloved heart. I am very anxious on your account, and often am quite tearful about it. Best regards to the parents.

Your most faithful v.B.

Berlin, Monday. (Postmark, August 28, '49.)

My Darling,—I sit here in my corner room, two flights up, and survey the sky, full of nothing but little sunset-tinted lambs, as it appears, along the Taubenstrasse and over the tree-tops of Prinz Carl's garden, while along Friedrichstrasse it is all golden and cloudless; the air damp and mild, too. I thought of you and of Venice, and this only I wanted to write to you. News has come today that Venice has surrendered at discretion; so we can go there again, and again see the tall white grenadiers. * * * I dined with Manteuffel today, yesterday with Prince Albert, of course, day before yesterday with Arnim, and then I took a ride with him of fourteen miles at a gallop—which suited me well, save for some muscular pains. In the Chamber we keep on doing nothing whatever; in the Upper House the German question, happily, has been brought forward again in very good speeches by Gerlach, Bethmann, and Stahl, and yet today the Camphausen proposition was adopted with all the votes against nineteen. With us, too, it is beginning to excite men's tempers. The proposition is bad in its tendency, but its result insignificant even if it goes through with us, as is to be expected. Tant de bruit pour une omelette. The real decision will not be reached in our Chambers, but in diplomacy and on the battlefield, and all that we prate and resolve about it has no more value than the moonshine observations of a sentimental youth who builds air-castles and thinks that some unexpected event will make him a great man. Je m'en moque!—and the farce often bores me nearly to death, because I see no sensible object in this straw-threshing. Mother's little letter gave me great pleasure, because, in the first place, I see that you are well, and then because she has her old joke with me, which is much pleasanter at a distance, as it does not lead to strife; and yet how I should like to quarrel with mammy once more! I am genuinely homesick to be quietly with you all in Schönhausen. Have you received the ribbon for Aennchen?

Tuesday.—Hans is just breakfasting, and eating up, from sheer stinginess, a quarter pound of butter that he bought three days ago, because it begins to get old. Now he screams that my tea is there, too. I close for today, as I have something to do afterwards. My love to FatherMotherAnnaAdelheidMarie and all the rest. God's blessing be with you and keep you well and merry.

Your most faithful v.B.

Berlin, September 11, '49. (Postmarked September 10.)

I wrote yesterday, my Nannie, but as it costs me nothing, not even for paper, for this is the Chamber's, I do want to improve a wearisome moment, during which I must listen to the reading of a confused report on normal prices, to send you another little greeting; but again without the ribbon, for I am going to buy that later on. This morning I attended the cavalry manoeuvres, on a very pleasant horse of Fritz's; rode sharply, swallowed much dust, but, nevertheless, had a good time; it is really pretty, these brilliant, rapidly moving masses interspersed with the clanking of iron and the bugle signals. The Queen, my old flame, greeted me so cordially. Having driven past without noticing me, she rose and turned backward over the bar of the carriage, to nod to me thrice; that lady appreciates a Prussian heart. Tomorrow I shall take a look at the grand parade, in which the infantry also participates. I believe I have written you that the King and Leopold Gerlach visited the Emperor of Austria at Teplitz, where there was also a Russian plenipotentiary. The proletariats of the Chamber are now gradually coming to see that on that occasion something may have been concocted which will cast mildew on their German hot-house flowers, and the fact that his Majesty has conversed with the ruler of all the Croatians frightens them somewhat. Qui vivra verra. These Frankfort cabbage-heads are incorrigible; they and their phrases are like the old liars who in the end honestly believe their own stories; and the impression produced on our Chamber by such ridiculous things as they say, without any regard for the matter in hand, or for common-sense, will be sure at last to convince people generally that peasants and provincials are not fit to make laws and conduct European politics. Now I must listen. Farewell, my much-beloved heart. Love to my daughter and your parents.