con, all that is to be sent to Berlin. The garden is still quite green
for the fall season, but the paths are overgrown with grass, and our
little island is so dwarfed and wet that I could not get on to it; it
rains without let-up. The little alderman, of course, sat with me all
the afternoon, otherwise I should have written you sooner and more at
length. I want to leave again tomorrow morning, and I have still
several business letters to write. Yesterday, with the King, I
celebrated the nine-hundredth anniversary of the Brandenburg
Cathedral, after it had been thoroughly exorcised and the bad national
spirits driven out. The entire royal family was there, except the
Princess of Babelsberg, who is at Weimar; also Brandenburg,
Manteuffel, Wrangel, Voss, and many high dignitaries, among them
myself, quite courageously at the front in church, next to the
princesses. At dinner his Majesty said many pretty things about his
electoral and capital city of Brandenburg, and was also very friendly
to me. I introduced to the Queen a number of village mayors, who had
been of particular service in my election; they were so much moved by
it that afterwards they embraced me with tears in their eyes. Finally,
the King became very angry at Patow, who had made his appearance as
President-in-chief, and to whom he had not spoken till then. "Sir,"
said he, in a very loud and angry voice, "if you belong to the Right,
then vote with the Right; if you belong to the Left, vote, in the----
name with the Left; but I require of my servants that they stand by
me, do you understand?" Breathless silence, and P---- looked like a
duck in a thunder-storm. * * * It is right good that I did not take
the apartment on the Thiergarten; aside from the wet feet which my
angel would get in dirty and damp weather, the house has been broken
into seven times during the couple of years of its existence, a fact
of which sympathizing souls would surely have informed you; and, if on
some long winter evening I were not at home, you and the two girls and