His father's one wish was to return to his home, but for a long time the mother would not have it so.

At last, in the year 1858, he accomplished his wish.

He was then sixty-three years old, and he represented to his wife that after his life of unremitting work, now in its undoubted decline, he had a right to spend the last few years in peace in his native land.

He possessed enough for his family to live on; the children would grow and get a better education than in Russia, and above all he wished to keep his Prussian nationality.

The mother yielded, and so they came to Berlin, where the father bought a modest house near the Friedrich-Wilhelm gymnasium.