[Footnote:  Durch das Rod van unten.  The punishment of the wheel was usually inflicted upon murderers, incendiaries, highwaymen and church robbers.  There were two methods of inflicting this:  (1) ‘from above downwards’ (von oben nach unten), in which the condemned man was despatched instantly owing to his neck getting broken from the start; and (2) ‘from below upwards’ (von unten nach oben), which is the method referred to above, and in which all the limbs of the victim were broken previous to his body being actually twisted through the spokes of the wheel.—­Editor ]

The culprit was a soldier who had murdered his sweetheart in a fit of jealousy.  When, later in the day, I sat down to my last dinner at the inn, I heard the dreadful details of the Prussian mode of execution being discussed on all sides.  A young magistrate, who was a great lover of music, told us about a conversation he had had with the executioner, who had been procured from Halle, and with whom he had discussed the most humane method of hastening the death of the victim; in telling us about him, he recalled the elegant dress and manners of this ill-omened person with a shudder.

These were the last impressions I carried away from the scene of my first artistic efforts and of my attempts at earning an independent livelihood.  Often since then on my departure from places where I had expected to find prosperity, and to which I knew I should never return, those impressions have recurred to my mind with singular persistence.  I have always had much the same feelings upon leaving any place where I had stayed in the hope of improving my position.

Thus I arrived in Berlin for the first time on the 18th May, 1836, and made acquaintance with the peculiar features of that pretentious royal capital.  While my position was an uncertain one, I sought a modest shelter at the Crown Prince in the Konigstrasse, where Minna had stayed a few months before.  I found a friend on whom I could rely when I came across Laube again, who, while awaiting his verdict, was busying himself with private and literary work in Berlin.  He was much interested in the fate of my work Liebesverbot, and advised me to turn my present situation to account for the purpose of obtaining the production of this opera at the Konigstadt theatre.  This theatre was under the direction of one of the most curious creatures in Berlin:  he was called ‘Cerf,’ and the title of Commissionsrath had been conferred upon him by the King of Prussia.  To account for the favours bestowed upon him by royalty, many reasons of a not very edifying nature were circulated.  Through this royal patronage he had succeeded in extending considerably the privileges already enjoyed by the suburban theatre.  The decline of grand opera at the Theatre Royal had brought light opera, which was performed with great success at the Konigstadt theatre, into public favour.  The director, puffed up by success, openly laboured under the delusion that he