to make the most elevating impression upon me.  Rockel undertook to accompany them over the barricade in safety to the mastering place in front of the Town Hall.  He took the opportunity of lamenting the utter absence of true spirit which he had hitherto encountered in those in command.  He had proposed, in case of extremity, to defend the most seriously threatened barricades by tiring them with pitch brands; at the mere word the provisional government had fallen into a veritable state of panic.  I let him go his way in order that I might enjoy the privilege of a solitary person and reach the Town Hall by a short cut, and it was not until thirteen years later that I again set eyes upon him.

In the Town Hall I learned from Bakunin that the provisional government had passed a resolution, on his advice, to abandon the position in Dresden, which had been entirely neglected from the beginning, and was consequently quite untenable for any length of time.  This resolution proposed an armed retreat to the Erzgebirge, where it would be possible to concentrate the reinforcements pouring in from all sides, especially from Thuringia, in such strength, that the advantageous position could be used to inaugurate a German civil war that would sound no hesitating note at its outset.  To persist in defending isolated barricaded streets in Dresden could, on the other hand, lend little but the character of an urban riot to the contest, although it was pursued with the highest courage.  I must confess that this idea seemed to me magnificent and full of meaning.  Up to this moment I had been moved only by a feeling of sympathy for a method of procedure entered upon at first with almost ironical incredulity, and then pursued with the vigour of surprise.  Now, however, all that had before seemed incomprehensible, unfolded itself before my vision in the form of a great and hopeful solution.  Without either feeling that I was in any way being compelled, or that it was my vocation to get some part or function allotted to me in these events, I now definitely abandoned all consideration for my personal situation, and determined to surrender myself to the stream of developments which flowed in the direction towards which my feelings had driven me with a delight that was full of despair.  Still, I did not wish to leave my wife helpless in Dresden, and I rapidly devised a means of drawing her into the path which I had chosen, without immediately informing her of what my resolve meant.  During my hasty return to Friedrichstadt I recognised that this portion of the town had been almost entirely cut off from the inner city by the occupation of the Prussian troops; I saw in my mind’s eye our own suburb occupied, and the consequences of a state of military siege in their most repulsive light.  It was an easy job to persuade Minna to accompany me on a visit, by way of the Tharanderstrasse, which was still free, to Chemnitz, where my married sister Clara lived.  It was only a matter of a moment for her to arrange