It was indeed my old friend Alwine who in Berlin had not only followed all my fortunes with the greatest sympathy, but had also done all in her power to give me consolation and courage to endure.  Almost every evening, when the day’s business made it possible, I used to visit her for an hour of recreation, and gain strength from her ennobling conversation for the struggle against the reverses of the following day.  I was particularly pleased by the warm and intelligent sympathy which she and our mutual friend Werder devoted to Lohengrin, the object of all my labours at that time.  On the arrival of her friend and patroness, the Crown Princess, which had been delayed till now, she hoped to hear something more definite as to how my affairs stood with the King, although she intimated to me that even this great lady was in deep disfavour, and could only bring her influence to bear upon the King by observing the strictest etiquette.  But from this source also no news reached me till it was time for me to leave Berlin and I could postpone my departure no longer.

As I had to conduct a third performance of Rienzi, and there still remained a remote possibility of receiving a sudden command to Sans-Souci, I accordingly fixed on a date which would be the very latest I could wait to ascertain the fate of the projects I had nearest to heart.  This period passed by, and I was forced to realise that my hopes of Berlin were wholly shattered.

I was in a very depressed state when I made up my mind to this conclusion.  I can seldom remember having been so dreadfully affected by the influence of cold and wet weather and an eternally grey sky as during those last wretched weeks in Berlin, when everything that I heard, in addition to my own private anxieties, weighed upon me with a leaden weight of discouragement.

My conversations with Hermann Franck about the social and political situation had assumed a peculiarly gloomy tone, as the King of Prussia’s efforts to summon a united conference had failed.  I was among those who had at first been inclined to see a hopeful significance in this undertaking, but it was a shock to have all the intimate details relating to the project clearly set before me by so well informed a man as Franck.  His dispassionate views on this subject, as well as on the Prussian State in particular, which was supposed to be representative of German intelligence, and was universally considered to be a model of order and good government, so completely disillusioned me and destroyed all the favourable and hopeful opinions I had formed of it, that I felt as if I had plunged into chaos, and realised the utter futility of expecting a prosperous settlement of the German question from this quarter.  If in the midst of my misery in Dresden I had founded great hopes from gaining the King of Prussia’s sympathy for my ideas, I could no longer close my eyes to the fearful hollowness which the state of affairs disclosed to me on every side.