 | CHAPTER V.
THE FOX'S DEN. Morton's Hope, or, The memoirs of a provincial. |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
THE FOX'S DEN.
A few minutes' walk brought us to his lodgings.
We ascended two flights of stairs, and entered his
apartment. The sitting-room was tolerably large,
and, in its furniture and arrangements, a perfect
specimen of a regular “kneipe.” The floor was
without carpet, and sanded; and the household
furniture consisted of a table, a sofa, and half-a-dozen
chairs of the most unpretending kind. The
great expense had been, however evidently made
in providing the pipes, pictures, and other student-luxuries.
A large and well-executed engraving of
a celebrated duel, which, from the notoriety of the
combatants, and its tragical issue, had become historical,
hung on the right side as you entered. On
the left, the wall was covered with a large collection
of “silhouettes.” These are a peculiar and invariable
characteristic of a German student's room; —
they are well executed profiles, in black paper on a
white ground, of the occupant's intimate friends,
and are usually four or five inches square, and surrounded
with a narrow frame of black wood.
Rabenmark's friends seemed to be numerous, for
there were at least a hundred silhouettes, ranged in
regular rows, gradually decreasing by one from the
bottom, till the pyramid was terminated by a single
one, which was the profile of the “senior” of the
Pommeranian club. Most of the worthies represented
possessed (as it is not uncommon with profile portraits)
a singular similarity with each other. All
had variegated club-caps, moustachios, and bows of
ribbons in their button holes, and looked as if they
might have been furnished by an upholsterer in “lots
to suit purchasers.” A scarf of scarlet and gold was
suspended in graceful festoons from two nails, so as
to form a sort of triumphal wreath for the whole.
The third side of the room was decorated with a
couple of “schlägers,” or duelling swords, which
were fastened crosswise against the wall. The
schläger is a sword, I believe, of perfectly unique
formation; the blade is between three and four feet
in length, and of finely tempered steel; its breadth
is about three quarters of an inch, and the point, or
rather end, is square and blunt; its edge on both
sides, for about nine inches, from the extremity, is
as sharp as the most carefully polished razor. The
rest of the blade is comparatively dull, and the heel
is screwed securely into a basket-hilt, of large dimensions,
covered on the outside with cloth of the
owner's club. The hilts of Rabenmark's were of
blue, scarlet and gold.
On the fourth side of the room were ranged a collection
of pipes, which were the pride of his hearth.
row. The bowls were of porcelain, exquisitely
painted; some with portraits of pretty women, some
with copies from Ostade and Gerhard Dow, and
some with the arms of his intimate friends. The
stems were about three feet in length, and of a fragrant
polished cherry. The tassels were large, and
rich, and of every combination of Landsmannschaft
colour. Besides these were halfa dozen meerschaums,
of all the different kinds: there was the “milkmeerschaum”
from Vienna, exquisitely carved, and
delicate as sugar work; the “oil meerschaum” from
Hanover, carefully polished, and scientifically embrowned
towards the bottom by its own smoke; besides
the “wax meerschaum,” the “raw meerschaum,”
and various others.
Besides these articles, there were some half-dozen
engravings in frames, a fowling-piece, a sabre, and
two or three different species of caps hanging in different
parts of the room.
“There,” said Rabenmark, entering the room,
unbuckling his belt, and throwing the pistols and
schläger on the floor. “I can leave my buffoonery
for a while and be reasonable; it's rather tiresome
work, this renommiring.”
“Have the kindness to tell me,” said I, “what
particular reason you have for arraying yourself and
your dog in such particularly elegant costumes; and
for making such an exquisite exhibition of yourself
during your promenade?”
“No particular reason,” he answered; “but it
on the whole. I am a fox. When I came to the
university three months ago, I had not a single acquaintance.
I wished to introduce myself into the
best Landsmannschaft, but I saw little chance of succeeding.
I have already, however, become an influential
member. What course do you suppose I
adopted to gain my admission?”
“I suppose you made friends of the president or
senior, as you call him, and the other magnates of
the club,” said I.
“No. I insulted them all publicly, and in the
grossest manner. Look here,” he continued, taking
down one of the schlägers from the wall, and
showing me the list of the duels he had already
perpetrated, written, according to an universal custom,
on the white leathern lining of the hilt. The
number of entries was already about fourteen.
“See,” said he, “these first half-dozen are the
senior, con-senior, and some other members of the
Pommerania; they were my first six duels.”
“I suppose you got well peppered by such old
stagers,” said I; “but I hardly see how that was
to expedite your admission.”
“Oh! that was a very simple matter,” replied
Rabenmark; “for in the first place, you are wrong
in your flattering supposition. Instead of being
peppered, I was very successful; and after I had
cut off the senior's nose, sliced off the con-senior's
upper lip, moustachios and all, besides bestowing
less severe marks of affection on the others, the
to secure the services of so valorous a combatant,
voted me in by acclamation.”
“Do you find any particular satisfaction,” said I,
“in your club, and the university life?”
“Oh, it is boy's play,” said he; “but then I am
a boy, in years at least. I have a certain quantity
of time on my hands. I wish to take the university
as a school for action. I intend to lead my
companions here, as I intend to lead them in after
life. You see I am a very rational sort of person
now, and you would hardly take me for the same
crazy mountebank you met in the street half-an-hour
ago. But then, I see that this is the way to
obtain superiority. I determined at once, on arriving
at the university, that, to obtain the mastery over
my competitors, who were all extravagant, savage,
eccentric, was to be ten times as extravagant and
savage as any one else. You do not suppose I derived
any particular satisfaction from tying up Fritz's
tail with ribbons; but then it is as good a way of
bullying as any other, and besides, these student-duels
are capital exercise.”
“Suppose, however, that Mr. Weissbier had happened
to be a less tractable person than he proved
to be?”
“Why, I should have been obliged to shoot
him.”
“You forget the less agreeable alternative. He
might have done you the same favour.”
“Oh no,—impossible. I shall not die till I am
period, I shall live some twelve or thirteen years
longer; I forget the exact number; but I have it
written down in my common-place book somewhere.”
This I found afterwards to be a settled conviction.
Nothing could induce Rabenmark to admit the possibility
of his death, till that age. It was a prediction
in his family, by some gipsy, I suppose, for hewas,
as I have said, a Bohemian. His age was, at
the time of which I am writing, exactly eighteen
and a half.
“Perhaps,” said he, politely, “you would like to
see a duel or two. They are very pretty gladiatorial
exhibitions. There are always plenty going on
every day, and they are quite as amusing as the
combats des animaux at Paris.”
“I should have no objection,” said I, “as it
seems customary to admit spectators.”
Here Rabenmark threw open the window, and
called to a passing acquaintance. “Katt! do you
go `los' to-morrow afternoon?” (To go los, or
loose literally, is the cant expression for fighting.)
“Yes; with Poppendorf,” was the answer.
“Very well. Oh! by the way, have the kindness
to step to a certain Pott of the Bremen club,
and to Kopp and Fizzleberg of the Brunswick, and
challenge them each for me, on twenty-four gangs,
small caps.”
“Very well. I shall see you at the Kneipe to-night?”
“Yes. Adieu.”
“Adieu.”
“There, Mr. Morton,” continued Rabenmark,
“you see in five minutes a student's whole life. A
young man usually spends three years at the university.
As most of the German universities are in
coalition, whatever time he spends at one, is counted
for him at the next, and he consequently usually
passes a whole year at one, the next term at another,
and so on. The first two years of the three,
a student generally employs in fighting duels and
getting drunk. After he has fought his fifty or a
hundred duels, and drunk as much beer as he is
capable of, he usually, at the end of his second year,
leaves his club, and spends his third and last year
in diligent study. His examination,—and a very
strict one it is,—succeeds: and if he can pass it, he
receives his doctor's degree, whether of theology,
philosophy, law, or medicine, and retires into private
life.”
“But, I suppose, he remains a long time, a troublesome
and ferocious individual?”
“On the contrary. Nobody ever hears of him.
It is a singular anomaly,—the whole German student
existence. The German students are no more
Germans than they are Sandwich Islanders. They
have, in fact, less similarity with Germans, than
with any other nation. You see in them a distinct
and strongly characterized nation, moving in a definite,
though irregular orbit of its own, and totally
independent of the laws which regulate the rest of
phenomenon of a rude, though regularly organised
republic, existing in the heart of a despotism.
In fact, every one of the main points of the German's
character is directly the opposite of those of
the German student. The German is phlegmatic,
—the student fiery. The German is orderly and
obedient to the authorities—the student ferocious and
intractable. The German is peaceable,—the student
for ever brawling and fighting. The German
is eminently conservative in his politics,—the student
always a revolutionist. The government of all the
German states is despotić,—the student's whole existence
is republican. The German is particularly
deferent to rank and title. In the student's republic,
and there alone, the omnipotent `Von' sinks before
the dexterous schläger, or the capacious `beer
bummel.' Lastly, the German is habitually sober,
and the student invariably drunk.”
“But how, in God's name, is it, that this community
of desperadoes does not at last overwhelm
the whole of Germany? How is it that they do
not set the whole empire in a blaze?”
“Why, the process of evaporation seems after
all, to be very simple. A certain number leave the
university every year; and besides that they have
already been subjected to a preparatory cooling of
about a year, during which they have been preparing
themselves for their examination, it usually
appears that the number is so insignificant in comparison
with the vast population in which they are
apprehended, seems impossible. They are at once
extinguished in the ocean of mankind.”
“Then it seems that this last year's study acts
as a sort of safety-valve, and diminishes the danger?”
“Annihilates it entirely. Besides this, a great
effect is produced by the sobriety of the citizen; nay,
of the student himself, after his metempsychosis.
A man, when he is tipsy, looks at all subjects and
particularly political subjects, with much more enthusiasm
than when he is sober. When the fumes
of beer and schnapps have been dispersed, and he is
once settled in private life, he finds it much better to
pocket his wages as Referendarius, Auditer, &c.,
paid out to him by the despot's treasurer, and wait
quietly till he receives his ultimate promotion, than
to be quarrelling with the government, and losing
his money and his head for his pains.”
“Well,” said I, getting up, “I am much obliged
to you for your information, and I feel the sagacity
of all your observations; but it's getting near dinner-time,
and so I shall wish you a good morning.”
“Good morning. By the way, if you are inclined
to drink beer to-night, I shall be happy to take
you with me to the Kneipe. I will call for you at
six this evening if you choose.”
“Very well. Adieu.”
| CHAPTER V.
THE FOX'S DEN. Morton's Hope, or, The memoirs of a provincial. | |