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 fiance 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?