I am to be forced to spend my few days of freedom sitting in judgment over thievish tramps of Jews, like a prisoner in a fortress.  I hope Gerlach can free me; otherwise I shall never speak to him again.  Tomorrow I shall at once drop you a line from Magdeburg, to tell you how I succeed. * * * The people have abandoned the dike-captain conspiracy against me; the Town Councillor says he will not press it at all.  He chattered to me for hours about his land-tax commission, in which his anxiety drove him to rage against his own flesh, and also, unfortunately, against ours.  Our chief misfortune is the cowardly servility towards those above and the chasing after popularity below, which characterize our provincial councillor; consequently public business, the chase, land-tax, etc., are all deleteriously affected.  It is due principally to the fact that he is grossly ignorant and bungling in affairs, and is, therefore, for better, for worse, in the hands of his democratic circuit secretary, to whom he never dares to show his teeth; and, despite all that, the fellow wears trousers, has been a soldier, and is a nobleman.  La-Croix is district-attorney at Madgeburg, withal, and he, too, must help me to sneak out of it.  It is still impossible for me to acquiesce in the notion that we are to be separated all winter, and I am sick at heart whenever I think of it; only now do I truly feel how very, very much you and the babies are part of myself, and how you fill my being.  That probably explains why it is that I appear cold to all except you, even to mother; if God should impose on me the terrible affliction of losing you, I feel, so far as my feelings can at this moment grasp and realize such a wilderness of desolation, that I would then cling so to your parents that mother would have to complain of being persecuted with love.  But away with all imaginary misery; there is enough in reality.  Let us now earnestly thank the Lord that we are all together, even though separated by three hundred and fifty miles, and let us experience the sweetness of knowing that we love each other very much, and can tell each other so.  To me it is always like ingratitude to God that we choose to live apart so long, and are not together while He makes it possible for us; but He will show us His will; all may turn out differently; the Chambers may be dissolved, possibly very quickly, as the majority is probably opposed to the Ministry.  Manteuffel was resolved upon it in that event, and it seems that Radowitz, since he is Minister, has approached him, and, in general, wants to change his politics again.  Best love to all.  Farewell.  God keep you.

Your most faithful v.B.

Berlin, April 28, ’51.

My Dear Sweetheart,—­Mother’s premonition that I would remain long away has, unfortunately, proved correct this time. * * * The King was the first to propose my nomination, and that at once, as a real delegate to the Diet; his plan has, of course, encountered much opposition, and has finally been so modified that Rochow will, it is true, remain Minister at Petersburg, whither he is to return in two months, but meanwhile, provisionally, he is commissioned to Frankfort, and I am to accompany him, with the assurance that, on his leaving for Petersburg, I shall be his successor.  But this last is between ourselves.