IN ZALT-BOMMEL 

Berlin, 24 March 1861 
13 Bellevuestrasse 
(Address: Dr F. Lassalle) 

My dear Cousin, 

I cannot thank you enough for your precious letter which fails 
only in being too short, although you have acted up to the English 
rule of packing the best things in the smallest compass. 

I arrived at Berlin on Sunday last (17th March), at 7 o’clock in 
the morning. My travel was not marked by any incident save a 6'/; 
hours’ delay at Oberhausen, an abominably tedious little place. 
Lassalle who lives in a very fine house, situated in one of the finest 

4 You take the point, my friend. - > Sophie von Hatzfeldt - © Herr Vogt - 4 In the 
original: 18 March. 

streets of Berlin, had everything prepared for my reception, and 
gave me a most friendly welcome. The first hours having been 
talked away and my railway-fatigue chased by some rest and some 
refreshments, Lassalle introduced me at once to the house of the 
countess of Hatzfeldt who, as I soon became aware, dines every 
day in his house at 4 o’clock p. m., and passes her evenings with 
him. I found her hair as ‘blond’ and her eyes as blue as formerly, 
but for the remainder of her face I read the words imprinted in 
it: twenty and twenty make fifty seven. There were in fact wrinkles 
full of ‘vestiges of creation’, there were cheeks and chin betraying 
an embonpoint which, like coal beds, wants much time to be 
formed, and so forth. As to her eyebrows, I was at once struck by 
the circumstance that they had improved instead of deteriorating, 
so that art had by far got the better of nature. On later occasions I 
made the general remarks that she perfectly understands the art 
of making herself up and of finding in her toilette-box the tints no 
longer derived from her blood. Upon the whole, she reminded me 
of some Greek statues which still boast a fine bust but whose 
heads have been cruelly ‘beknappered’ by the vicissitudes of time. 
Stull, to be not unjust, she is a very distinguished lady, no 
blue-stocking, of great natural intellect, much vivacity, deeply 
interested in the revolutionary movement, and of an aristocratic 
laissez aller very superior to the pedantic grimaces of professional 
femmes d’esprit? 

On Monday, my friend Lassalle drew up for me a petition to the 
chief of the Prussian police for my restoration to the civil rights of 
a Prussian subject.” On Tuesday, Lassalle himself, who is a man of 
extraordinary audacity, carried the petition to Herr von Zedlitz 
(Polizeiprasident, partisan of the Junkerpartei and the king’s‘ 
confidant) and, what with menaces, what with flatteries— Zedlitz 
considering this direct appeal to himself, instead of to the 
subaltern authorities, as a compliment paid to his person—he has 
so far succeeded that to-day the ministerial paper— Die Preussische 
Zeitung— announces my return to the ‘fatherland’. Still I have not 
yet received an official answer in regard to my re-naturalisation. 

On Tuesday evening Lassalle and the countess led me to a 
Berlin theatre where a Berlin comedy, full of Prussian self- 
glorification, was enacted.“ It was altogether a disgusting affair. On 
Wednesday evening I was forced by them to assist at the 
performance of a ballet in the Opernhouse. We had a box for 

a clever women - > See present edition, Vol. 19, p. 339. - © William I - ¢ See this 
volume, p. 288. 

ourselves at the side— horribile dictu*—of the king’s ‘loge’. Such 
a ballet is characteristic of Berlin. It forms not, as at Paris, or at 
London, an entrejeu,” or the conclusion, of an opera, but it absorbs 
the whole evening, is divided into several acts, etc. Not a syllable is 
spoken by the actors, but everything is hinted at by mimickry. It is 
in fact deadly—dull. The scenery, however, was beautiful; you 
assisted for instance at a sea-voyage from Livorno to Naples; sea, 
mountains, seacoast, towns, etc., everything being represented with 
photographical truth. 

On Thursday Lassalle gave a dinner in honour of my return, 
gentlemen and ladies being invited. Among the celebrities there 
were the old general von Pfuel, ‘Schlachtenmahler’* Bleibtreu, 
Hofrath Forster (a known Prussian historiograph and formerly 
called the ‘Hofdemagog’,’ he being a personal friend of the late 
king“) and so forth. Hofrath Forster brought out a toast on my 
humble self. I was seated at table between the countess and 
Fraulein Ludmilla Assing, the niece of Varnhagen von Ense and 
the editor of Varnhagen’s correspondence with Humboldt.’ This 
Fraulein, who really swamped me with her benevolence, is the 
most ugly creature I ever saw in my life, a nastily Jewish 
physiognomy, a sharply protruding thin nose, eternally smiling 
and grinning, always speaking poetical prose, constantly trying to 
say something extraordinary, playing at false enthusiasm, and 
spitting at her auditory during the trances of her ecstasis. I shall 
to-day be forced to pay a visit to that littke monster which I treated 
with the utmost reserve and coldness, giving her to understand by 
friend Lassalle that the power of attraction works upon myself 
always in a centrifugal direction and that, when I happen to 
admire a person very much, I am very apt to steal altogether out 
of its presence. 

The state of things here is illboding for the powers that be. The 
Prussian Exchequer labours under a deficit, and all the old parties 
are in a movement of dissolution. The chamber of deputies will 
have to be re-elected during this season, and there is every 
probability that, during the process of its reconstitution, a great 
movement will pervade the country. This may, as my friend 
Lassalle thinks, be the proper moment for starting a newspaper 
here in the Prussian capital, but I have not yet come to a firm 

* horrible to say - > interlude - © war artist - 4 court demagogue - © Frederick 
William IV -! Briefe von Alexander von Humboldt an Varnhagen von Ense aus den Jahren 
1827 bis 1858, Leipzig, 1860. - © See this volume, pp. 252, 257, 261. 

resolution. The necessity of waiting for the official answer of the 
authorities to my petition may prolong my sojourn beyond the 
term originally contemplated. 

You see, my dear child, I have much seen during a few days, 
but still you may be sure that I always wish myself back to 
Bommel." 

With my best compliments to yourself, your father,” and the 
whole family, believe me always 

Your most sincere admirer 
Charles Marx