This time you shall get a really heavy letter. At first I even 
wanted to write to you on cardboard so that you would have to 
fork out quite a sum for postal charges, but unfortunately I could 
not get a piece with a smooth surface and so | must write on the 
heaviest paper to be found in our paper store. I‘ you don’t know 
what a Paukstunde is.that proves that in culture you have remained 
shamefully backward, but that you did not see it from the enclosed 
drawing proves also natural dullness, and one sees that not only 
the hops of education but even the malt of mother wit are lost on 
you. In your bad German a Paukstunde is the same as a fencing 
lesson. I have now also acquired a couple of rapiers and gloves, 
the only gloves I have, for I don’t care for kid-gloves, etc. 

Concerning the Stabat mater dolorosa et cetera, it occurs to me, 
please look up whether this thing was composed by Pergolese. If 
so, please get me if possible a copy of the score; if instruments are 
included, I don’t need them, only the voices. But if it is by 
Palestrina or somebody else I don’t need it.? The day after 
tomorrow we are going to perform Paulus by Mendelssohn, the 
best oratorio written since Handel’s death. You will know it. I go 
to the theatre only rarely since the local one is terribly bad; I go 
occasionally, only when a new play is being shown, or a good 
opera I don’t know yet. 

Since my last letter we have had a fine flood here. At 
Treviranus’ the water stood 12 to 14 inches deep in my room, and 
I had to flee to the Old Man,? who with his usual kindness 
accommodated me for nearly a fortnight. But then the fun really 
started properly. There was a foot and a half of water at the front 
door, and to prevent it getting into the cellar, which has a hatch, 
we walled this up with cow-dung. But the malicious water then 
flowed from the neighbour’s cellar into ours through the wall, and 
so that it should not drown our fine barrels of rum and our 
potatoes, and above all the Old Man’s well-stocked wine cellar, we 
had to pump day and night for four nights running, and 
I pumped through all four of them. Wilhelm Leupold and I usu- 
ally stayed up together, sat on the settee behind the table, with a 
few bottles of wine, sausage and a big piece of the finest Ham- 
burg smoked meat on the table. We smoked, talked and pumped 
every half hour. It was most entertaining. At five o’clock the Old 
Man would come and relieve one of us. There were some 
touching incidents during the flood. In a house outside the town 
which was full of water up to the ground floor windows, people 
suddenly saw an enormous host of rats swimming along, which 
went in through the windows and occupied the whole house. 
Besides, there was no man in the house, only a lot of females 
terrified of rats, so that in spite of their fear, the delicate 
ladies had to resolve to attack the wild horde with sabres and 
sticks, etc. In a house lying quite close to the Weser the of- 
fice clerks were just sitting at breakfast when a large block 
of ice came drifting along, charged through the wall and 
poked its immodest head into the room, followed by a good 
portion of water. Now I shall tell you a piece of news. You 
remember that I wrote you once very mysteriously about a big 
dinner given in the Royal Saxon Consulate at which great secrets 
were broached.” Now I can tell you that the person who was the 
guest of honour at that dinner was the dame souveraine des pensées, 
the donna amada mais que la vida‘ of my second principal, the 
above-mentioned Wilhelm Leupold. During the flood he told me 
officially that his engagement would be announced at Easter, and 
I tell you this relying on your discretion; but you must not breathe 
a word about it, as it will only be made public at Easter. You see 
how I trust you, for if you talked about it, it could spread here to 
Bremen in three days, since there are gossiping females 

To Friedrich Graeber, February 22, 1841 525 

everywhere. And then I would be in a fine fix—The name of 
W. Leupold’s fiancée is Therese Meyer, daughter of the Stick-Meyer 
in Hamburg; he is called Stick-Meyer because he has a walking- 
stick factory by which he has made a pile of money. She wears a 
blue spencer and a light-coloured dress, is 17 years old and as slim 
as you, if you have not put on weight in Mannheim. She is not 
even confirmed yet, isn’t that terrible? 

Today I have shaved my moustache off again and buried the 
youthful corpse with much wailing. I look like a woman; it is 
shameful; and if I had known that without a moustache I should 
look such a sight I would not have hacked it off. As I stood before 
the mirror, scissors in hand, and had shorn off the right side, the 
Old Man came into the office and had to laugh out loud, when he 
saw me with half a moustache. But now I shall let it grow again, 
for I cannot show myself anywhere. In the Academy of Singing I 
was the only one with a moustache and always used to laugh at the 
philistines who could not marvel enough that I had the audacity to 
go so unshaven into decent society. The ladies, incidentally, liked 
it very much, and so did the Old Man. Only last night at the 
concert six young dandies stood around me, all in tail-coats and 
kid-gloves, and I stood among them in an ordinary coat and 
without gloves. The fellows made remarks all evening about me 
and my bristling upper lip. The best of it is that three months ago 
nobody knew me here and now all the world does, just because of 
the moustache! Oh, the philistines! 

Yours, 
Friedrich 
Bremen, Feb. 18, 41