The weather is clear again, and I should stay here some days longer if rumors of a big battle in Italy were not going about, which may result in lots of diplomatic work, so that I must get back to my post.  The house in which I am writing is wonderful enough, really; one of the few that have outlived 1812—­old, thick walls, as in Schoenhausen, Oriental architecture, Moorish, large rooms, almost entirely occupied by the chancery officers, who administer, or maladminister, Jussupow’s estates.  He, his wife, and I have the one livable wing in the midst of them.  Lots of love.

Your most faithful v.B.

Petersburg, July 2, ’59.

My Dear Heart,—­I received your letter of the 25th yesterday, and you will probably get tomorrow the one that I sent to Stettin on Wednesday with the Dowager Czarina.  My homesick heart follows its course with yearning thoughts; it was such charming clear weather and fresh winds when we escorted her Highness on board in Peterhof that I should have liked to leap on the ship, in uniform and without baggage, and go along with her.  Since then the heat has grown worse, about the temperature of a freely watered palm-house, and my lack of summer materials is making itself decidedly felt.  I go about in the rooms in my shirt alone, as the dear blue dressing-gown is too narrow, even now at six o’clock in the morning.  A courier wakened me half an hour ago, with his war and peace, and I cannot sleep any more now, although I did not get to bed until towards two.  Our politics are drifting more and more into the Austrian wake, and as soon as we have fired a shot on the Rhine then it’s all over with the war between Italy and Austria, and, instead of that, a war between France and Prussia will take the stage, in which Austria, after we have taken the burden from her shoulders, will stand by us or will not stand by us, just as her own interests dictate.  She will certainly not suffer us to play a gloriously victorious role.  It is quite remarkable that in such crises Catholic ministers always hold the reins of our destiny—­Radowitz once before, now Hohenzollern, who just now has the predominant influence, and is in favor of war.  I look very darkly into the future; our troops are not better than the Austrian, because they only serve half as long; and the German troops, on whose support we reckon, are for the most part quite wretched, and, if things go ill with us, their leaders will fall away from us like dry leaves in the wind.  But God, who can hold up and throw down Prussia, and the world, knows why these things must be, and we will not embitter ourselves against the land in which we were born, and against the authorities for whose enlightenment we pray.  After thirty years, perhaps much sooner, it will be a small matter to us how things stand with Prussia and Austria, if only the mercy of God and the deserving of Christ remain to our souls.  I opened the Scriptures last evening, at random, so as to rid my anxious heart of politics, and my eye