_My Darling_,--In a sullen rage I swoop down upon my inkstand after just lighting the Town Councillor downstairs with the kindliest countenance in the world. He sat here for two and a half hours by the clock, moaning and groaning, without the least regard for my wry face; I was just about to read the paper when he came. From ten to two I crawled about the Elbe's banks, in a boat and on foot, with many stupid people, attending to breakwaters, protective banks, and all sorts of nonsense. This is, in general, a day of vexations; this morning I dreamed so charmingly that I stood with you on the seashore; it was just like the new strand, only the mud was rocks, the beeches were thick-foliaged laurel, the sea was as green as the Lake of Traun, and opposite us lay Genoa, which we shall probably never see, and it was delightfully warm; then I was awakened by Hildebrand, accompanied by a summoner, who brought me an order to serve as a juror at Magdeburg from October 20th to November 16th, under penalty of from one hundred to two hundred rix-dollars for each day of absence. I am going there by the first train tomorrow, and hope to extricate myself; for God so to punish my deep and restless longing for what is dearest to me in this world, so that we shall not have the fleeting pleasure of a couple of weeks together, would, indeed, be incredibly severe. I am all excitement; that is our share in the newly achieved liberty--that I am to be forced to spend my few days of freedom sitting in judgment over thievish tramps of Jews, like a prisoner in a fortress. I hope Gerlach can free me; otherwise I shall never speak to him again. Tomorrow I shall at once drop you a line from Magdeburg, to tell you how I succeed. * * * The people have abandoned the dike-captain conspiracy against me; the Town Councillor says he will not press it at all. He chattered to me for hours about his land-tax commission, in which his anxiety drove him to rage against his own flesh, and also, unfortunately, against ours. Our chief misfortune is the cowardly servility towards those above and the chasing after popularity below, which characterize our provincial councillor; consequently public business, the chase, land-tax, etc., are all deleteriously affected. It is due principally to the fact that he is grossly ignorant and bungling in affairs, and is, therefore, for better, for worse, in the hands of his democratic circuit secretary, to whom he never dares to show his teeth; and, despite all that, the fellow wears trousers, has been a soldier, and is a nobleman. La-Croix is district-attorney at Madgeburg, withal, and he, too, must help me to sneak out of it. It is still impossible for me to acquiesce in the notion that we are to be separated all winter, and I am sick at heart whenever I think of it; only now do I truly feel how very, very much you and the _babies_ are part of myself, and how you fill my being. That probably explains why it is that I appear cold to all except you,