Mendelssohn was also in the capital about this time, having been appointed one of the General Musical Directors to the King of Prussia.  I also sought him out, having been previously introduced to him in Leipzig.  He informed me that he did not believe his work would prosper in Berlin, and that he would rather go back to Leipzig.  I made no inquiry about the fate of the score of my great symphony performed at Leipzig in earlier days, which I had more or less forced upon him so many years ago.  On the other hand, he did not betray to me any signs of remembering that strange offering.  In the midst of the lavish comforts of his home he struck me as cold, yet it was not so much that he repelled me as that I recoiled from him.  I also paid a visit to Rellstab, to whom I had a letter of introduction from his trusty publisher, my brother-in-law Brockhaus.  Here it was not so much smug ease that I encountered; I doubtless felt repulsed more by the fact that he showed no inclination whatever to interest himself in my affairs.

I grew very low spirited in Berlin.  I could almost have wished Commissioner Cerf back again.  Miserable as had been the time I had spent here years before, I had then, at any rate, met one man, who, for all the bluntness of his exterior, had treated me with true friendliness and consideration.  In vain did I try to call to mind the Berlin through whose streets I had walked, with all the ardour of youth, by the side of Laube.  After my acquaintance with London, and still more with Paris, this city, with its sordid spaces and pretensions to greatness, depressed me deeply, and I breathed a hope that, should no luck crown my life, it might at least be spent in Paris rather than in Berlin.

On my return from this wholly fruitless expedition, I first went to Leipzig for a few days, where, on this occasion, I stayed with my brother-in-law, Hermann Brockhaus, who was now Professor of Oriental Languages at the University.  His family had been increased by the birth of two daughters, and the atmosphere of unruffled content, illuminated by mental activity and a quiet but vivid interest in all things relating to the higher aspects of life, greatly moved my homeless and vagabond soul.  One evening, after my sister had seen to her children, whom she had brought up very well, and had sent them with gentle words to bed, we gathered in the large richly stocked library for our evening meal and a long confidential chat.  Here I broke out into a violent fit of weeping, and it seemed as though the tender sister, who five years before had known me during the bitterest straits of my early married life in Dresden, now really understood me.  At the express suggestion of my brother-in-law Hermann, my family tendered me a loan, to help me to tide over the time of waiting for the performance of my Rienzi in Dresden.  This, they said, they regarded merely as a duty, and assured me that I need have no hesitation whatever in accepting it.  It consisted of a sum of six hundred marks, which was to be paid me in monthly instalments for six months.  As I had no prospect of being able to reply on any other source of income, there was every chance of Minna’s talent for management being put severely to the test, if this were to carry us through; it could be done, however, and I was able to return to Dresden with a great sense of relief.