Bertha avoided me in a very conspicuous way, because after supper she talked to girls from the village instead of me. I told her that I was so worried about her, always remembering that, as Fiedler told me, she [had] said that she had not found what she [had] been looking for in me. But she ( 245 ) didn't show anything, but gave me a kiss when I said goodbye.

February 20th, 1840.
I went to Hahndorf with Mr. Kook, partly to rent a boy and partly to talk to Pastor Kavel about my marriage relationship. He wasn't in Hahndorf yet when we arrived, but only arrived in the evening. That same evening we talked about the church order, and although he defended the points I disputed, for example the handing over of a sinner to Satan, etc., we still agreed that he wanted to go through the whole thing again and then go through it with us, Teichelmann and me. Regarding my marriage relationship, he said that I could not blame him if he was not as firmly convinced as I was of the will of God, nor of the fact that the recent disturbance in our love came from Satan; but I could rely on him to be on my side, and at least he had no direct influence in the recent incident, and he never considered it to be God's will as much as he did now; When I asked him to do what he could on his side, he promised to send a message regarding me to Fiedler and his daughter.

February 21st, 1840.
I stayed in Hahndorf, hired the boy ( 246 ) Gottfried Pfeifer(200), with a monthly salary of 25 s., and attended the prayer hour in the evening, where letters from Germany were read out and prayers were said for the church there. Princess Reuss(201) wrote that she wasn't pleased with Wermelskirch(202) and that he wasn't allowed to preach in Saxony either, and although I contradicted that, Pastor Kavel said in his prayer as if the Princess was right. In general, it seemed to me as if a separatist view of the Lutheran Church outside of Prussia prevailed [existed] both with Pastor Kavel and with his congregation.

February 22nd, 1840.
After I had experienced a day and two nights in the most Christian and fraternal way with Pastor Kavel, I made my way back. During this time I decided to visit my Bertha in order to get over the somewhat unpleasant impression of my last visit and to recover from the arduous 4 1/2 [hours] journey. But I was terribly deceived or disappointed! --

Bertha told me that she was back to her old position, that God's will was not at all clear to her, that she had no spark of hope for our connection, that she could not separate from the community, and so on; all in a tone that destroyed me. I reminded her of my penultimate visit and the assurances she had made, and she was obviously afraid, which she didn't deny, but unfortunately she added that she had felt something uncertain the entire time we were together. When Mr. Fiedler came in soon afterwards, we talked about the matter together and I explained that I would never give up my hope, that hope would not lead to shame and the like. But