Saturday, he hadn't found time to talk to my bride yet, and he was so busy writing letters today that he couldn't talk to me much. He also said that he was now very afraid of talking about such things, especially since he couldn't say anything now because he hadn't spoken to Bertha and so didn't know whether she was doing the right or wrong thing by stepping away. He didn't find out Bertha's pretextual reason from her, but from Weimann.

Bertha is and remains a mystery to me; If I have observed correctly, she is without worry and sorrow and without love, as she herself says. She asked me not to say "You" anymore, she has no pity for me, feels nothing of my suffering and maintains that she doesn't have a shred of hope; that I make my suffering difficult and so on. If I present the matter to her from the Christian side, she accuses herself of the lack of previous ( 257 ) examination, instead of her current haste, and says that man should have his free will and the like.

O God, why did you let me end up in this great, unchangeable misery? Now comfort me, strengthen me again, and fill my heart completely with your love if I cannot and should not attain that of my bride, so that I do not languish in longing loneliness. --

Since the boy I had hired from Hahndorf didn't show up, I turned to Engelhardt and Weimann said in his presence last Sunday that it would be useful if he went with me and he didn't say anything against it. But today he said he had no inclination to do that. So my co-religionists all leave me, all of them.

Therefore stay, Lord Jesus!
my shepherd and my refuge, and be with me in my solitude. –

Bertha denies that she was thinking about something else, even though it might seem that way today, as if Julius Fiedler had her favor, but perhaps that's not the case.

March 12th, 1840.
Moorhouse had been with the governor today, who said that if I needed food for the natives in Encounter Bay in the future, I should just like to write an official letter to Moorhouse and then they should be given to me.

Dir, o Herr!, sei Dank für alle Gnade.

( 258 ) March 18th, 1840.
Assuming that Pastor Kavel would have spoken to my bride, I went back to Klemzig. Bertha told me in general terms what he [had] said to her, and I learned from Pastor Kavel that the reason for Bertha's resignation, according to her own statement, was that she had never had the slightest edification for me, that I seemed to be proud of her by resenting her for calling herself "You" with other girls in the village, and that the memory of the Schlinke affair also worried her. She hadn't