Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/299

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ

anything to be undertaken soon, and wait patiently and silently until she heard again from her friend. My letter was so worded that she could understand it, while it would not betray my intentions if it fell into wrong hands. As she also was familiar with my handwriting, I signed with a different name and directed the address to a third person whom she had mentioned to me. I conceived at once the plan to get secretly to Bonn for the purpose of talking over with her further steps, instead of risking such communications to paper.

Without delay I began my preparations. I wrote to my cousin, Heribert Jüssen, in Lind, near Cologne, whose outward appearance corresponded in all essential points with mine, asking him to procure from the police a traveling passport in his name and to send it to me. A few days afterwards the passport was in my hands, and now I could like an ordinary unsuspected mortal travel without difficulty wherever I was not personally known. Then I gave the officers of our club to understand that I was ready as an emissary to visit various places in Germany for the purpose of organizing branch clubs and to put them into communication with our committee in Switzerland. This offer was received with great favor, and I obtained, together with minute instructions, a long list of persons in Germany who could be depended upon. Of course of my real plans I did not give the slightest intimation. All was ready for my departure, and as I went on a secret expedition as an emissary, my friends found it quite natural that about the middle of March I should suddenly and entirely unnoticed disappear from Zürich.

[ 253 ]