I am well, my darling Nan, but I am cold, for in the morning the rooms are already so chilly that I long very much for the Schönhausen fireplaces, and matters in the Chamber are so tedious that I often have serious thoughts of resigning my commission. In the ministry there is again a shameful measure preparing; they now want to submit a real property tax bill, according to which those estates which are not manors are to be indemnified, while manors must suffer, as the number of nobles is not dangerous. Only if encumbered for more than two-thirds of their value, they are to be assisted by loans. What good will a loan do a bankrupt, who has it to repay! It is a mixture of cowardice and shameless injustice such as I could not have expected. Yesterday we had soft, warm autumn weather, and I took a long walk in the Thiergarten, by the same solitary paths which we used to traverse together; I sat, too, on our bench near the swan-pond; the young swans which were then still in their eggs on the little island were now swimming vivaciously about, fat, gray, and _blasé_, among the dirty ducks, and the old ones sleepily laid their heads on their backs. The handsome large maple standing near the bridge has already leaves of a dark-red color; I wished to send you one of them, but in my pocket it has become so hard that it crumbles away; the gold-fish pond is almost dried up; the lindens, the black alders, and other delicate things bestrew the paths with their yellow, rustling foliage, and the round chestnut-burrs exhibit a medley of all shades of sombre and attractive fall coloring. The promenade, with its morning fogs among the trees, reminded me vividly of Kniephof, the woodcock-hunt, the line of springes, and how everything was so green and fresh when I used to walk there with you, my darling. * * * On the 1st of October I shall probably have to attend the celebration of the nine-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the cathedral there, to which the King is coming. For the 2d and the following days I have been invited to go on a royal hunt to the Falkenstein. I should be very glad to shoot a deer in those woods which we and Mary saw illuminated by the moon on that evening; but even if matters in the Chamber should not prevent, I am at a loss how to reconcile that with our journey, and I feel as though I should steal my days from you by going. * * * I am now going out to buy a waist, to call on Rauch, and then again to the Thiergarten. All love to father and mother, and may God preserve you in the future as hitherto, my dearest. Your most faithful v.B. Berlin, Friday. (Postmarked September 28, '49.)