The Student Life of Germany Part 30

Comes there no bill my needs to better?

Have I at play my money lost?

My maiden, writes she not a letter!

Come grievous tidings by the post?

Then drink I, from anxiety, A br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.s Crambambulli.

Ah! if the dear old folks but knew it, How we young Gents, their sons, were stead, How we must pinch and sorely rue it, They'd weep till their old eyes were red.

Whilst make themselves the Filii So bene by Crambambuli.

And has the Bursch his cash expended?

To sponge the Philistine's his plan.

And thinks it folly all extended, From Burschen unto Beggarman.

Since this is the philosophy In spirit of Crambambulli.

Shall I for fame and freedom stand then; For Burschen weal the sword lift free?

Quick blinks the steel in my right hand then, A friend will stand and second me.

To him I say, Mon cher ami, Before a gla.s.s Crambambuli.

It grieves me sore, ye foolish-hearted, That ye love not, and drink not wine; To a.s.ses are ye now converted, And might be angels all divine.

Drink water like the cattle free, And think it is Crambambuli.

Crambambuli, it still shall cheer me, When every other joy is past, When o'er the gla.s.s Friend Death draws near me, And mars my pleasure at the last.

I'll drink with him in companie The last gla.s.s of Crambambulli.

Then who 'gainst us, Crambambulisten, His spiteful mouth with envy screws, We hold him for no kind of Christian, Since he G.o.d's blessings doth abuse.

I'd give him, though for life cried he, No single drop Crambambuli.

During the singing the rum has burnt out, and the beverage, of a syrupy consistence, is ladled into the gla.s.ses. At eleven o'clock at night, which is the hour of the police, the kneips are closed. For some years it has been the practice in Heidelberg that a bell should be rung at this hour, which should be the signal for all landlords to close their houses. At first this order received much opposition from the students, and they endeavoured to make it ridiculous. As the order was, that at eleven the bells should be rung, on its first appearance in the Heidelberg wochenblatt (newspaper), at this hour all the dogs of the students ran about the city with bells hung to their necks, and their masters, to fulfil the order to the letter, began, to the terror and amaze of the inhabitants, to set all the bells of the private houses in full swing.

CHAPTER XVIII.

NEW YEAR'S EVE.

The year's last hour retreating, Peals out with solemn sound; Drink brothers! your last greeting, And wish him blessings round.

'Tis gone! with gray years blended, That are for ever ended.

It brought much gladness, many woes, And leaves us nearer to our close.

_Voss_.

The last evening of the year had arrived. It found the two friends Hoffmann and Freisleben in the room of the latter, where the friends were accustomed gladly to a.s.semble. "Shall I light the lamp?" asked Freisleben. "No! let us sit in the dark. When the eye does not distract itself with outward objects, it then turns with delight to those images which memory brings before the mind." So the two sate; and they thought over all which this year had given and taken away; on all, after which they had striven, and which they had achieved; and on much, after which they had desired to strive and accomplish. Each was lost in this internal review, and the silence was only broken by one of the friends being so powerfully seized with the recollection of the past, that he must communicate his feeling to the other. "So then," said Freisleben, "another year of this beautiful university life is over! and when I call to mind that this year is a quarter, or a fifth of the whole, the words of a German writer are irresistibly forced upon me:--'The world may easily roll on, as it has. .h.i.therto done, yet for a million years; and in that period, five thousand years would be exactly proportionate to a quarter of a year in the life of a man of fifty,--scarcely a twelfth of our university life!' What have I done in the last quarter of a year? Eaten, drunken, electrified, made a calendar, laughed over the tricks of a kitten, and so are five thousand years of this little world run out, in which I move!"

Hoffmann.--Away with this calculation! To embellish the life of our friends, and to enjoy ourselves that life cheerily, that is the business of existence.

Freisleben.--The time spent at the university is certainly the most lovely time of our life; but even in that I am amazed to-day how one can be so merry, when one recollects how much more of unpleasant than pleasant the year has brought.

Hoffmann.--There I differ. Past pain is pleasant in memory, and past pleasure is pleasure both future and present Thus, it is only present and future pain that troubles us; a strong presumption of a sensible preponderance of enjoyment in the world, which is augmented by this circ.u.mstance, that we are constantly endeavouring to create enjoyment, whose fruition we can, in many cases, foretell with tolerable certainty, while, on the contrary, future pain can be much seldomer prognosticated exactly.

"Yes, to be sure! That is now clear, and I understand it," said Von Kronen, who had caught the end of this demonstration, "but that on which I have been reflecting is not yet clear to me. Perhaps you gentlemen who to-day are in so philosophical a mood can enlighten me upon it."

Freisleben.--What will come of it then?

Von Kronen.--The phenomenon is one of the most mysterious in nature.

Yet--

Hoffmann.--Only out with it!

Von Kronen.--Tell me then how it comes to pa.s.s that cats have holes in their skins exactly where their eyes are?

Hoffmann.--Thou whimsical herring!

Von Kronen.--Without a joke, this is one of the three riddles that I will lay before you. If you can solve them, you shall smoke the whole evening genuine Havanna cigars, that I have received from Hamburgh as a Christmas present.

Freisleben.--That's worth something!

Hoffmann.--Samiel, help!

Von Kronen.--The first you have; so solve it.

Freisleben.--I will explain it to thee. The nose has here stretched the skin too much outwards, so that it has cracked it on both sides, exactly where the eyes are.

Von Kronen.--Well hit! Now for the second. Why do the hares sleep with open eyes?

Hoffmann.--Because their skin is too short to permit them to shut their eyes.

Von Kronen.--Bravo! Now the third. Where go the cats when they are three years old?

Hoffmann.--With thy confounded cats! If the talk was of foxes, or of some other reasonable cattle?

Von Kronen.--Yes! dear Lord Abbot[44] put it together, or I must p.r.o.nounce sentence of a.s.ses on you.

Hoffmann.--Stop! I have it. They go into their fourth year!

Von Kronen:--

O damsel! O damsel! O damsel! now marry I thee, Now marry I thee!

Mr. Traveller enters.--How are you, gentlemen? What an Egyptian darkness there is in the streets! It was all I could do to find the house.

Hoffmann.--There is moonshine in the calendar to-day.

Freisleben.--The police regulations in our city are very much like the clapper-mills in the cherry-trees. They stand still when the rattle is most needed, and make a terrible larum when, on account of the high wind, the sparrows don't come.