|
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - 5:52 PM
our letter reminded me, to my enormous shame, how much I have
neglected my duty to write to you. It was really disgraceful of me and
there is no excuse whatever for this crime. So I'm setting to work
immediately and replying to your nice letter which I received the day
before yesterday. I had a dose of cannon fever yesterday. What happened
was this: I was very unwell and felt really weak the whole morning and
was then ordered to artillery practice and was nearly laid out at the
gun, so I left and had a shocking fever all the afternoon. I felt a bit
better this morning but still was not quite up to the mark at the
gun-fire practice, although I have now almost recovered and have got
myself two days sick-leave on account of catarrhal cannon fever, after
which I hope I shall be able to handle the sponge properly again.
Incidentally, don’t write home about this, it won’t be of any use. Do
you know what the doctor prescribed for my cannon fever? A glass of
punch before going to bed, isn’t that splendid medicine? You can see
from this that an army surgeon is worth much more than, say, a Dr.
Reinhold, with all his plasters, Spanish flies, leeches, etc., although
he doesn’t need to know nearly as much. But we only apply powerful
remedies here, genuine medical heavy artillery, bombs and shells and
24-pounders. Our prescriptions are very simple and I always cured
myself that way in Bremen. First of all, beer; if that doesn’t help,
then punch; if that doesn’t help either, then a swig of rum — that’s
bound to help. That’s artillery medical treatment for you. But I'm sure
you would laugh yourself sick if you saw me in my jerkin, standing
beside the six-pounder, a long, thick sponge in my hand, and jumping
around the guncarriage. My uniform, incidentally, is very fine, blue
with a black collar adorned with two broad yellow stripes, and black,
yellow-striped facings together with red piping round the coat tails.
Furthermore, the red shoulder-straps are edged with white. I assure you
the effect is most impressive and I'm worthy to be put on show. Because
of this the other day I shamefully embarrassed Rückert, the poet, who
is here at present. I sat down right in front of him as he was giving a
poetry reading and the poor fellow was so dazzled by my shining buttons
that he quite lost the thread of what he was saying. Apart from all
this, as a soldier I enjoy the privilege of not having to knock at
anyone’s door when I go to see them, nor having to say good day or pay
them any other compliments. Someone once came to our Captain’s quarters
and accidentally banged against the door with his scabbard. He got a
week’s arrest, because the Captain Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire insisted that he had knocked on the
door. You see what kind of cutthroat I am. On top of it I shall soon be
promoted to bombardier, which is a sort of non-commissioned officer,
and I shall get gold braid to wear on my facings. So you must treat me
with proper respect. Because once I'm a bombardier, I shall have all
the privates in the whole Prussian army under my command and they will
all have to salute me.
Why do you talk so much nonsense in your letter about old Fritz Wilm
[Frederick William III] and about young Fritzchen Wilmchen [Frederick
William IV]? You women should not interfere in politics, you don’t
understand anything about it. But since you so much want to hear
something about your beloved Majesty, I can tell you that His Supreme
Royal Highness will leave for London on the 16th of this month in order
to act as godfather to His Royal Highness, the little English prince
[Edward], and will perhaps visit Paris on the return journey but most
certainly Cologne, and in the spring he is going to Petersburg to
celebrate the silver wedding of his noble brother-in-law, the All
Highest Tsar of Russia, [Nicholas I] then return to amuse himself in
Potsdam in the summer, to spend the autumn on the Rhine and then to
amuse himself in Charlottenburg during the winter. Now I must go to a
lecture.
Jan. 6, 1842
This morning I moved out of the front room into the back room,
because the front one has been let to a man from my part of the
country, a jurist from the Cologne area; in any case, it is badly
heated. This is curious, for the back room is larger than the front one
but it is always warm from a little heating while the front one is as
cold as ice. Whatever I did, I could never get the ice-ferns on the
windows in the front room to melt, but here at the back, it is a
pleasure to watch the ice, which has frozen finger-thick during the
last week, melting away as in spring, and the bright blue sky, which I
was unable to see from my former room for so long, is gaily looking in.
And I can once again see the barracks of the 2nd Guards Regiment of
Mudlarks (as we call the Infantry) and the Veterinary School and
everything attached to it.
We've got a Rhinelandish restaurant here where all our favourite
home dishes — which are otherwise quite unknown here-are served. Every
Saturday night we have fried potato cake along with a jug of coffee.
Yesterday I had apple and potato. Our good old duck soup, which you
know well, has a distinguished place there. And lots of other things
which do not come to my mind. There is pork and sauerkraut for lunch
today, which I'm looking forward to. The other day he was going to
treat us to pannhas [Rhenish meat dish] but it didn’t come
off because there is no buckwheat flour to be had, so we can’t have
yeast pancakes either, which we have long been languishing for.
Splendid! The sun is beginning to shine well and truly, which I find
most delightful, and so I shall go for a walk after dinner, and since
Schelling is not lecturing tonight, I shall have the whole evening to
myself and be able to work seriously and without interruption.
The local theatre is very fine — magnificent sets, splendid actors,
but mostly bad singers. So I don’t very often go to the opera. Tomorrow
there will be a new play, Columbus by Werder [244].
This is about Columbus who discovered America and Werder is a professor
at the University here, the man who discovered the profundity of
negation. Verily, verily I say unto you the theatre will be really full
tomorrow night and I will be there contributing to its fullness. Two of
the acts take place on a ship at sea, which should be interesting to
watch. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Here you see me in uniform with my greatcoat draped round my
shoulder in a most romantic and picturesque fashion — but strictly
against regulations. If I were to go out like this into the street, I
should risk being arrested at any moment-which isn’t very pleasant. For
if I'm seen in the street with even one button on my uniform or one
hook on my collar unfastened, any officer or N.C.O. can put me under
arrest. So you see, it is quite dangerous to be a soldier, even in
peacetime. One of the most delightful things is that we have to go to
church every four weeks but I have always managed to dodge it, except
once. You have to stand in the yard for an hour beforehand wearing your
heavy decorated shako with its plumes and then when you are frozen
right through, you go into the ice-cold church where you cannot even
hear anything of the sermon, for the acoustics are so bad. Isn’t that
delightful? Write again soon.
|