and, at the same time, a strictly
orthodox Jew, who touches nothing at his dinners, and eats only
"undefiled" food. "Johann dage vid you some bread for de deers," he
said his servant as he came out to show me his garden, in which there
were some tame fallow deer. "Baron, dat blant costs me two thousand
guilders, honor bride, two thousand guilders gash; I vill let you have
it for one thousand or, if you vant it for nuddings, he shall bring id
to your house. God knows I abbrejiate you highly, Baron; you are a
nize man, a brave man." With that he is a little, thin gray imp of a
man, the patriarch of his tribe, but a poor man in his palace,
childless, a widower, cheated by his servants, and ill-treated by
aristocratically Frenchified and Anglicized nephews and nieces who
will inherit his treasures without gratitude and without love.
Good-night, my angel. The clock is striking twelve; I want to go to
bed and read chap. ii. of the Second Epistle of St. Peter. I am now
doing that in a systematic way, and, when I have finished St. Peter,
at your recommendation I shall read the He-brews, which I do not know
at all as yet. May God's protection and blessing be with you all.

Your most faithful v.B.

Frankfort, July 3, 1851.

_My Pet_,--Day before yesterday I very thankfully received your letter
and the tidings that you are all well. But do not forget when you
write to me that the letters are opened not by me alone, but by all
sorts of postal spies, and don't berate particular persons so much in
them, for all that is immediately reported and debited to my account;
besides, you do people injustice. Concerning my appointment or
non-appointment I know nothing as yet, except what was told me when I
left; everything else is possibilities and surmises. The only
crookedness about the matter us far has been the government's silence
towards me, for it would have been only fair to let me know by this,
and officially at that, whether during next month I to live here or in
Pomerania with wife and child. Be careful in your remarks to every one
there, without exception, not to Massow alone; particularly in your
criticisms of individuals, for you have no idea what one experiences
in this respect after once becoming an object of surveillance; be
prepared to see warmed up with sauce, here or at Sans Souci, what you
may perhaps whisper to Charlotte[17] or Annie in the boscages or the
bathing-house. Forgive me for being so admonitory, but after