so many figs today that I was obliged to drink rum, but they were the last.  I am sorry you cannot see the Indian corn; it stands closely packed, three feet higher than I can reach with my hand; the colts’ pasture looks from a distance like a fifteen-year-old pine preserve.  I am sitting here at your desk, a crackling fire behind me, and Odin, rolled into a knot, by my side. * * * Mamsell received me in pink, with a black dancing-jacket; the children in the village ridicule her swaggering about her noble and rich relations.  She has cooked well again today, but, as to the feeding of the cattle, Bellin laments bitterly that she understands nothing about it, and pays no attention to it, and she is also said to be uncleanly; the Bellin woman does not eat a mouthful prepared by her.  Her father is a common cottager and laborer; I can easily understand that she is out of place there, with her grand airs and pink dresses.  Up to this time the garden, outside of Kahle’s keep, has cost one hundred and three rix-dollars this year, and between now and Christmas forty to fifty will probably be added for digging and harvesting, besides the fuel.  The contents of the greenhouse I shall try to have care of in the neighborhood; that is really the most difficult point, and still one cannot continue keeping the place for the sake of the few oranges.  I am giving out that you will spend the winter in Berlin, that in the summer-time we intend going to a watering-place again, and that, therefore, we are giving up housekeeping for a year. * * * Hearty love to our parents.  I shall celebrate father’s birthday with you, like a Conservative, in the old style.  May the merciful God, for His Son’s sake, preserve you and the children.  Farewell, my dear Nan.

Your v.B.

Since leaving Reinfeld I no longer have heartburn; perhaps it is in my heart, and my heart has remained with Nan.

Schoenhausen, October 1, ’50.

My Angel,—­I am so anxious that I can hardly endure being here; I have the most decided inclination to inform the government at once of my resignation, let the dike go, and proceed to Reinfeld.  I expected to have a letter from you today, but nothing except stupid police matters.  Do write very, very often, even if it takes one hundred rix-dollars postage.  I am always afraid that you are sick, and today I am in such a mood that I should like to foot it to Pomerania.  I long for the children, for mammy and dad, and, most of all, for you, my darling, so that I have no peace at all.  Without you here, what is Schoenhausen to me?  The dreary bedroom, the empty cradles with the little beds in them, all the absolute silence, like an autumn fog, interrupted only by the ticking of the clock and the periodic falling of the chestnuts—­it is as though you all were dead.  I always imagine your next letter will bring bad news, and if I knew it was in Genthin by this time I would send Hildebrand there in the night.  Berlin is endurable when one is alone; there one is