304 EAST PRUSSIA TO THE GOLDEN GATE 



and the most bitter sarcasm on my part, even when I 

 knew my own weakness, and when nobody had to tell me 

 that I saw motes in the eyes of others and failed to recog- 

 nize the beam in my own. 



I had a very pleasant surprise the other day, one— if 

 not as great 8 s when I receive letters from you, at least 

 somewhat resembling it. I am sure you will never guess 

 what it was. I got hold of two copies of the "Konigsber- 

 ger Hartung'sche Zeitung" of June the thirtieth and 

 July the eleventh, which an acquaintance had received 

 from relatives in that city. And how I read them and 

 read them again! Not a word was there in them but 

 awakened in me either pleasant or sad recollections, and 

 not a word did I allow to escape me from the beginning 

 to the end. No one, in the whole of East Prussia, could 

 have read these two numbers more attentively than I 

 have read them here. From the political news down to 

 the very signature of the editor not a single letter escaped 

 me. And what was there that did not bring my old home 

 vividly before my mind! And what a cloud of memories 

 arose within me with every word I read. There was the 

 announcement of an auction at Stockhausen's, reminding 

 me of my desk in Malmros* office— I wonder who may be 

 at it now?— and of the time when I ran as an apprentice 

 with samples of grain from one warehouse to another. 

 Then came Spitznik with "Plaster of Paris for sale," and 

 close by I read all about "Friiuleinhof," and saw myself 

 at play there as a little fellow with Dave and Emil. Here 

 I read in large letters: J. Wolfrath, linen goods — 

 Schmiedestrasse— opposite the Courthouse— and at once 

 I saw him before me with his round, good-natured face 

 and his flaxen hair surrounded by the whole "Society of 

 Clerks," which brings back to my mind our balls, with 

 myself as vice-president and committeeman in dress coat 

 and kid gloves. And there is Laube, my comrade of the 

 City Guards, who volunteered at the festival of the Eylan 

 Rifle Club; and does he not remind me of sentry duty, 

 of patrol duty and of parade? Koesting has been trans- 

 ferred from Tapian to Eastenburg; old Leitmiiller is 



