The Student Life of Germany Part 17

Von Kronen.--Phoh! cease all that. If thou dost not give over I shall run into the street that the wind may blow the stuff out of my ears.

This is the consequence of thy a.s.sociating so much of late with that Krusenstern, who makes such an everlasting sentimental face, like a goose that has had the feathers plucked out of its living body. They should stuff him with Indian corn, and hang him in the smoke, that they might grow him a good liver, with its appendage, a gall-bladder.

Freisleben.--Thou judgest to-day, contrary to thy wont, rashly upon my friend. Thy judgment is false and unjust; but that arises from thy knowing his history. The poor fellow is deeply to be pitied.

Pittschaft.--Freisleben, let us hear the story. We are all curious; and thou knowest it will remain amongst us friends.

Hoffmann.--See there! At length appears Mr. Traveller! Good evening.

Take off your things. Seat yourself by the stove: here is a pipe, and here the Fidibus.

Mr. Traveller.--Best thanks! Ha, it is savagely cold without; but here, thank G.o.d, it is warm and comfortable. But I have disturbed the gentlemen!

Hoffmann.--Not at all. Freisleben is about to tell the story of an unfortunate student. I fancy you would take an interest in it too.

Mr. Traveller.--I am all ear.

STORY OF KRUSENSTERN AND AVENSLEBEN.

Freisleben.--Krusenstern, whose pale and wasted figure you now see pa.s.sing silently about, was not always so. Once he was one of the handsomest students that the walls of Ruperto-Carolo ever enclosed.

Every endowment that honours man, adorned him; that, even his envier must admit Nature had richly crowned him with her gifts; and the education he, sprung from one of the richest mercantile families of the city of N----, enjoyed, had brought those gifts to their highest perfection; but he had one shadow-side, and this was his choleric temperament; a failing sufficient to plunge him into ruin. Similar studies, similar sentiments united him in a strong bond of friendship with Von Avensleben, the only son of a house of ancient n.o.bility. It was now in the year before his examination that he first saw and became acquainted with the sister of his friend; a most amiable lady, who then resided some time with her parents in the city of Heidelberg. His manly nature, free from all rudeness; his attractive demeanour, which a fine feeling of propriety pervaded; and his finished education, won him the heart of the damsel, and he testified to me that he had found in her that ideal which he had before continually sought in vain. I had the happiness to know the amiable family of the young lady, and recall with a melancholy joy the time which I spent amongst these good, and then so happy, people.

The widow Von Avensleben was as much distinguished for her high accomplishment as for her most una.s.suming disposition. She was well acquainted with the master works of German and foreign literature; and her knowledge of the world, and her nice tact, gave to her conversation a peculiar charm. She embraced her children in her innermost heart, her constant care was to smooth out every slightest trace of discord between them; and if she had a failing, it was her too great indulgence of them.

Amalia was the eldest daughter. She might be compared to one of those n.o.ble metals, which, because not vainly glittering on the surface, escape the eyes of ordinary men: but the n.o.ble ore conceals not its peculiar qualities from the knowing eye, which the more he observes, the more beautifully they discover themselves, and satisfy him that the pure metal requires no further refinement. In personal beauty inferior to her sister, the maiden had earlier advanced to a reflection upon herself and others, and her clear understanding enabled her to arrive at n.o.ble and free views of the true worth of outward things, and of her own mind. Thus she had early demonstrated that she was capable of the greatest sacrifices for her friends--for her friends, who were chosen after mature consideration, and in which choice womanly sagacity and fine feeling were her guides. Her youthful timidity gave place, as she first became conscious of her worth, to a n.o.ble a.s.surance. She judged others with indulgence, but hesitated not to speak out what was an acknowledged truth, even when that truth was not flattering to another.

Thus showed she herself constantly as a n.o.ble and true soul, which one must continue to love more and more.

The little Maria was not so circ.u.mspect as her sister. As a lovely b.u.t.terfly, she fluttered from flower to flower, extracting from each the best honey. Her vivacity led her to embrace whatever was good and beautiful with heartiness; but exactly because every thing is not good and beautiful, was indispensable to her a change of the flowers from which she drew nourishment. She knew how to show herself friendly and full of kindness to all who felt themselves compelled to pay to her the tribute of her love-worthiness, without tyrannically abusing her magic wand. But, when she sometimes saw that the lovely and brilliant side of a thing had too much bia.s.sed her frequently too predominant feeling; when she found herself deceived in and discontented with what she had, in her too enthusiastic fancy, taken up, would she painfully lament over the dark side of life. Certainly, every one who had once seen the little elegant being, as she charmingly and sweetly moved in society; every one who had glanced on her fine and n.o.ble features, and into her speaking eyes, must have loved her; and when she, moreover, sung with the clear metal of her voice, one of the beautiful songs which my friend accompanied on the piano, every one was enchanted.

Thus were they happy people; and the rapidly approaching completion of his university life, his rare acquirements, and the protection of men high in the government, gave my friend the promise of a near and a yet happier future. Ah! who could have thought that the peace of this happy family should be so horribly destroyed; that this lovely bond should have been so cruelly rent asunder! An inconsiderate action of the young Von Avensleben converted this paradise into a h.e.l.l.

He had accidentally received intelligence of a serenade which Krusenstern proposed to give to his loved one. This excited him to an ill-considered joke. As his friend glided near to the house with the nocturnal music, and standing near in the shade of another house, delighted himself with the imagination of the joy that his attention would give to Maria, Avensleben showed himself at the window, clad in a woman's night-dress, and threw a hand-kiss to Krusenstern. The wrath of Krusenstern at this foolish exposure of his lady to the ridicule of the musicians was furious, and a challenge to a duel with pistols was the consequence. No representations were able to bring him from this terrible resolve; and a journey which the family of Von Avensleben made, in order to spend a few days on a neighbouring estate of theirs, afforded the sundered friends an opportunity to compa.s.s their unhappy intention.

They drew in the early morning to the appointed place. Krusenstern with his seconds was first there--a spot well known to travellers by the name of the Engelswiese, or Angel's Meadow, lying up in the woods above the Neckar, on the opposite side to the city, and showing its pleasant green area belted in by the forest, to wanderers about the castle, though invisible to the valley below. He walked in silence to and fro, and gazed down upon the city, which lay gloriously illuminated by the morning sun. He could even distinguish the house where he had enjoyed the purest and deepest pleasures; he thought over the happy past; and anxious forebodings of a dark and perdition-blasted future rose up before him. The curtain was only too soon to be drawn aside, which his eyes were not yet permitted to penetrate. His antagonist appeared on the ground; the old resentment drove out every softer emotion; the seconds measured out the distance, the pistols were loaded, the word given--Von Krusenstern shot--but it became night before his eyes, as in the same moment he saw his antagonist spring on high, and then fall to the ground. He had received his death-wound.

Who shall describe the situation in which poor Krusenstern found himself!--who the misery of the friends of both! He was immovable to all persuasions to flight, and was committed by the magistrate to whom he had surrendered himself of his own accord, to the university prison until further inquiry.

The family of the fallen youth were immediately written to, to tell them, that, on account of some degree of indisposition, he would not be able immediately to follow them, as had been agreed, and a friend of the house undertook the sorrowful task of opening to them the dreadful intelligence. But the most terrible part was yet to come. Von Avensleben was highly beloved amongst the students, and it was resolved to attend his funeral with a torch-train; and that the wretched prisoner, who, during all this time had sate brooding in a stupor of grief without listening to any one, might not perceive it, they determined that the funeral should take place a day earlier than usual.

I was with the unhappy man on this eventful evening, endeavouring to comfort him, and to withdraw his thoughts from the dark pictures of his imagination. The shutters of the little room were closed, but a tone of the dismal mourning music struck his ear as the funeral train pa.s.sed by the end of the street, along the Hauptstra.s.se, or High Street, of the city. "My friend! they bear him to the grave!" cried he with a terrible voice, and rushed to the window. I endeavoured to hold him back, but he tore himself loose from my grasp with giant strength, and bursting open the shutters struck his head against the iron grating. There flared the sullen glow of the torches, and the tone of the trumpets quivered through my vitals. With ghostlike, terrible, and distorted countenance, he gazed after the melancholy train;--"I--I have murdered him! the good, the true friend! There! I see him with the bleeding wound, crying, 'Wo!' over me! Oh G.o.d! Oh G.o.d! thou has cast me off! Maria!

Maria! what have I done to thee! Seize me, ye spirits of h.e.l.l! Tear me away from the pure angel-form!" So he raved on, till, exhausted, he fell back into the chamber.

He pa.s.sed the night in the most horrible delirium; and for many days it was not dared to leave him a moment alone, lest he should effect his desperate endeavours at self-destruction.

But if the train left horrors behind it, it met yet still greater as it approached the end of the city. The letter had reached the family of Von Avensleben, but the friend had missed the sisters in the darkness of the night, as they hastened back to town to attend their sick brother.

"Whom do they bury there?" asked the trembling Maria, as their carriage, pa.s.sing in at the Mannheim gate, was detained by the mourning procession.

"The student who was shot in the duel," answered an old man, who did not know the young lady--"the Herr Von Avensleben."

The cry of horror and misery in the carriage, as it wheeling round again rolled away through the dark night, I attempt not to describe.

Maria only too soon became aware of the whole terrible secret. She fell into a long and severe nervous fever, and only arose from her sick bed to die a more weary death from the sure poison of incurable sorrow. She had written to her former lover a most moving letter, which a.s.sured him of her pardon, and in which she exhorted him to listen to the consolations of religion.

The kind girl had not desired the return of the little admonitory tokens of happy days; she had also retained his gifts, memorials of a pure and beautiful love, which a dreadful fate had destroyed.

Krusenstern, who spent two years in prison, is now come back again, and--you have seen him.

All had listened in silence to the recital. Of some of them, the pipes were gone out,--others blew powerfully clouds of smoke around them.

"Poor Krusenstern!" said Eckhard. "I revoke all that I have said against him."

"A most sorrowful history," said the Englishman.

"And false notions about women is the cause of all," said Von Kronen.

"The poor Krusenstern would never have gone so far if he had not regarded his love in too romantic a light. This mischief would never have happened if he had only read my favourite author, Lichtenberg, where he says,--'That the irresistible power of love can raise us, through its object, to the highest pitch of happiness, or plunge us down to the lowest gulf of misery, is poetical nonsense of young people, whose heads are yet only growing; which have no voices in the counsels of men; and for the most part are so constructed that they are never likely to have any.'"

"We must have no more such stories," said Hoffmann, "or the pleasures of the whole evening will be destroyed. The tea is ready; take your places, gentlemen."

Mr. Traveller, tasting the tea, p.r.o.nounced it capital; and declared his astonishment that the Frau Philistine could prepare so excellent a beverage; but the host gave him to understand that he had brewed it himself. "It is my favourite beverage," said he, "and when I spend the evening at home, serves me for supper; or I cook a beefsteak and potatoes in the little machine which stands yonder, and which is a good deal in vogue amongst the students."

"So, so!" said the Englishman, "that is very sensible now."

While they thus chatted, the House-besom entered, and set upon the table a handsomely-shaped tart, which is called in this part of the country, a Radonen-cake, as a gift from Herr Schutz, in whose house Hoffmann was familiar. The cake was admired, and the host addressed himself to cut it up scientifically, when--zounds! the whole cake was nothing but a snow-ball, which had been made in a proper mould, and which had received the requisite colour from an ingenious powdering with brick-dust. "So shalt thou return to the water out of which thou wert made," exclaimed Hoffmann, as the whole company laughed heartily at the deception.

When tea was over, the company divided itself. The Englishman and Von Kronen plunged deep into a game at chess. The other four played at whist, and Hoffmann, as master of the house, did the honours, wandering first to this and then to that table. The whist party continued long; after the first rubber they obliged the host to join then, and so spun out their play to the fifth rubber. In the meantime the two others had terminated their game at chess, and seated themselves by the stove, smoking their pipes, and chatting over this and that.

"Has your pipe a good chair-way?" asked the Englishman, whom this student expression amused.

"It goes like a flute," answered the other. "Why you have made yourself master of the art of smoking, even to its very technical terms."

"You can scarcely believe," said Mr. Traveller, "how much I am interested in every thing, that is German, of which smoking is one thing, and especially in all that is connected with its university system. So long as I continued in England, I did not trouble myself much on this head, but now I use all the endeavours I can to acquaint myself with the present const.i.tution of your universities. You must recommend to me a book in which I can find some notice of the origin of universities in general, and of the earlier fortunes of that of Heidelberg in particular."

"The best book on that subject," said Enderlin, who had come from the whist-table, "is Von Kronen himself. He can give you such a lecture upon it, that all the rats in the house shall run out; for which reason they wished to appoint him, in Westphalia, to the office of chamber-hunter. _Tres faciunt collegium_, so let us erect him a _cathedra_, whence he may p.r.o.nounce his lecture."

These arrangements were speedily made. In the meantime Von Kronen had put his visage into a very learned form, and begun:--

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF UNIVERSITIES.

Gentlemen,--Let us, as true sons of Minerva, exhibit an agreeable contrast to those people yonder, who have given themselves up to the burthen of play. May the honey of my words drop into your ears, and turn you into true disciples of wisdom. But the subject of our present lecture is the earlier fortunes of universities in general, and in particular of Ruperto-Carolo, that ancient fountain of knowledge, out of which we have drunk deep draughts.

"The sup of wisdom," interrupted Enderlin, "that we have eaten with a spoon, is a more beautiful metaphor--"

I warn the indiscreet hearer--said the _pro tempore_ professor, Von Kronen, sternly frowning,--of t.i.t ii. section 27, of the academical laws, where it is declared that--'insults towards persons who are placed in authority in the university, or towards the persons connected with them, shall be strictly punished; if they are offered from revenge, so must the punishment be made the sharper, and, according to circ.u.mstance, may be even penally amerced.' After this, let no man insult or interrupt.

Our European universities, as they at present exist, are the production of a comparatively late period, since, though we find inst.i.tutions resembling them in very early times, yet they were essentially and wholly different to ours. History shows us how, through the continually progressing culture of a people from age to age, inst.i.tutions for the fostering and diffusion of knowledge formed themselves; and thus we find, at first, the so-called Priest-Schools in Egypt, Persia, India, and amongst the Hebrews; amongst the Celtic people the cloister-like unions of the Druids, which in caves and solitary woods, imparted to the most distinguished of the youth oral instruction.

The business of teaching was confined to expounding of the laws, of the holy books, and so forth, and was communicated in verses. The educational inst.i.tutions of the Greeks were of a higher grade. The first and most celebrated High School was Athens; which also in still later times, maintained a high rank in this respect. We must here only remind ourselves of the gardens of Plato, in which he imparted his instructions in philosophy. The Cynosarges, where Antisthenes taught; the Poikyle or Stoa, where Zeno a.s.sembled his disciples; the gardens of Epicurus, and afterwards of the museum at Alexandria. Philosophy was the great science: as to them the Faculties, as well as the so-called Bread sciences (sciences made a trade or profession of) were totally unknown. The Greeks also possessed public libraries, as those at Alexandria and Pergamus. The educational inst.i.tutions of the Romans were modelled essentially upon those of the Greeks, and enjoyed the most extensive influence from the 607th year after the building of Rome; and the highest veneration was shown to professors from Greece, who taught in them philosophy and the arts. The Romans also held it indispensable to visit and study in the schools of Greece, and their young n.o.bility especially resorted to Athens, Rhodes, Alexandria, etc.

The Romans, moreover, were not acquainted with the division into Faculties, and every man of standing studied the liberal arts--studia humaniora--in their whole compa.s.s; and libraries, and collections of works and remains of art, were much more numerously and richly at their command. The study of philosophy was not the less zealously prosecuted than in Greece; but the grammatical philosophy of the Greek and Roman tongues, combined with rhetoric and poetry, were the highest objects of education. The continually increasing numbers of the immigrating Grecian professors, led to the founding of many other schools in Italy.

Amongst the most important was the Athenaeum, founded by the Emperor Hadrian, afterwards called the Schola Romana; those of the capitol, and other temples. Vespasian was the first to establish public professors of political science with fixed salaries. Antoninus Pius raised the so-called imperial schools, as did Valentinian those of Rome generally, to the higher distinction, by a thorough and salutary reform. Athens, however, still continued to maintain the highest reputation, down to the tenth century, to which people flocked from all countries.