30 EAST PRUSSIA TO THE GOLDEN GATE 



without a purpose. The rnain feature which the visitor 

 of this metropolis will at once recognize is the spirit of 

 servility, often followed by or combined with undeniable 

 traits of depravity, which are mirrored in the very faces 

 of numberless men and women. From the coachman to 

 the prince in the showy carriage, from the servant girl to 

 the countess, from the private of the Grenadiers to the 

 General, from the cash boy to the King's counselor— ev- 

 erybody brags, everybody tries to impress everybody else 

 in word and action, yes, in his very walk, that he is ever 

 so much superior to anyone else until— one higher in so- 

 cial standing happens along, then 0! how small, how very 

 humble the hero of a minute before has suddenly be- 

 come. It was Monday evening on Leipziger Platz, that 1 

 witnessed the gentleman, mentioned in my last letter, 

 who wore a decoration of rank in his button-hole pro- 

 foundly saluting the coachman or— the empty carriage 

 he was driving, which bore the coat of arms of its royal 

 owner— I had to refrain from giving this old hypocrite 

 a piece of my angered mind. How true is the much criti- 

 cised description of the immortal Heine, contained in 

 these words: "It really takes several barrels of poetry 

 to find anything else in Berlin but dead houses and dead 

 people." It is seldom you see a real man. Everything 

 though new, everybody, even the young, is so old, so 

 withered— so dead! After I had dressed myself on Tues- 

 day morning I found myself so disappointed, so ill-hu- 

 mored, that I did not care to leave the house all the fore- 

 noon, and not until four o'clock in the afternoon did I 

 decide to visit Hasenkamp, which meant a long walk, as 

 he is staying with Dorn, the lawyer, in Anhaltstr. I was 

 fortunate in finding him at home, but he had changed so 

 much that I scarcely recognized him. Sickness had dis- 

 figured him terribly and compelled the growth of a beard. 

 I spent two very pleasant hours with him, as he was in 

 an excellent frame of mind. He showed me his wounds, 

 one of which was caused by a chance shot, two inches 

 long, on the calf of the right leg, while the other proved 

 to be of a serious nature, the bullet having entered the 



