Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/340

 Now it appeared to me prudent to let the affair rest for a while, at least until we could be perfectly assured that the three disquieted souls in the penitentiary had preserved silence. My sojourn in Berlin, too, began to become uncomfortable to me. The number of friends who knew of my presence in the Prussian capital had grown a little too large, and I was confronted too often by the question why I was there and what were my intentions. I therefore requested one of my friends to bid good-bye to the others in my behalf. I had departed not to return. Where I went, nobody knew. In fact, I went for a week or two to Hamburg. There I met my friend Strodtmann and got into communication with some people of our way of thinking. But the most agreeable society could not hold me long. By the end of September I returned to my work, but I did not go back to Berlin, thinking it safer to live with my friend, Dr. Falkenthal, in the suburb of Moabit.

At Spandau I received the report that everything had remained quiet. In general my secret had been well kept. To my friends in Berlin I had disappeared into regions unknown. Only one of them, a law student, by the name of Dreyer, once accidentally ran against me in Moabit. He may have had a suspicion as to what my business was, but I could firmly count upon his discretion. At a later period many persons who were entire strangers to me have stated that they were at that time in confidential relations with me, but such statements were unfounded. Even Dr. Falkenthal and Krüger did not at that time know my true name. To them I was, as my passport indicated, Heribert Jüssen, and among Dr. Falkenthal's neighbors, who sometimes saw me, I passed for a young physician assisting the doctor in his studies. To strengthen this impression I always carried a little kit of surgical instruments with