I have already mentioned several new acquaintances I made and old friends I visited in Dresden. I was extremely pleased to renew my friendship with Ludwig Tieck. Madame Bauer informed him in advance about my desire to see him, and he received me like an old friend. Twenty years have flown by since our first meeting in a Parisian diligence. He has aged noticeably, become stooped, his hair turned grey, but the noble features of his face have not changed; the flame of his charming eyes has not extinguished. He is now sixty-four years old. I had to tell him about the events of my life, about my literary works. I did not need to ask him about his life: I had read all of his compositions with great pleasure and spoke with him about some of them. Ludwig Tieck was subjected to persecutions and slander from the writers comprising the so-called Young Germany for his devotion to the monarchic form of government, for his scorn of ridiculous liberals, and for his vociferous censure of their destructive ideas. These were enough reasons to reproach and ostracize him! He lives very quietly, works as a dramatist at the Dresden Theatre, which brings a small salary, and supplements his earnings with the money received for his literary works, but this sum is very insignificant. The king of Bavaria awarded him an order and also honored him by decorating one chamber in the royal palace in Munich with frescos, the themes of which were taken from the works of Tieck. Two days later, Tieck invited me to a literary soirée. Tieck's literary evenings are famous across Germany for his readings. No one else can read dramatic works with such truth, with such feeling. That evening at Tieck’s, there were about fifteen guests—actors, travelers, ladies. He read a tragedy written by his unfortunate friend Kleist: The Prince of Homburg. Indeed, I have never heard such natural, expressive, distinctive reading in my life. He did not name the characters, but distinguished them with his voice and tone. The enchantment was so complete that several days later, it seemed to me that I had actually seen this play performed on the stage; I just could not remember on which particular day or in which theatre.