The Pictures of German Life Throughout History. Gustav Freytag
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to him at Stalden. Simon, my mother's brother, dwelt at Summermatten, on the road to Stalden: he gave me a gold florin, which I carried in my little hand to Stalden. I looked often on the way to see that I still had it, and gave it to Paulus. Then we departed into the country, and I had to beg for myself, and to give of what I got to my Bacchant Paulus: on account of my simplicity and countrified language, much was given to me. At night going over the Grimsel Mountain we came to an inn; I had never seen a kachelofen,[18] and as the moon shone on the tiles, I imagined it was a great calf: I saw only two tiles shining, which were, I imagined, the eyes. In the morning I saw geese. I had never seen any before, and when they hissed at me I thought they were devils, and would eat me; so I cried out and ran away. At Lucerne I saw the first tiled roofs.
"Afterwards we went to Meissen: it was a long journey for me, as I was not accustomed to travel so far and to obtain food on the road. There were eight or nine of us travelling together; three small Schützen, the others great Bacchanten, as they are called; amongst all these I was the smallest and youngest. When I could not keep up well, my cousin Paulus came behind me with a rod, or little stick, and switched me on my bare legs, for I had no stockings, and bad shoes. I do not remember all that happened to us on the road. Once when we were talking together on the journey, the Bacchanten said it was the custom in Meissen and Silesia for the scholars to steal geese and ducks, and other such food; and nothing was done to them on that account, if they could escape from those to whom the things belonged. One day, when not far from a village, we saw a large flock of geese, and the herdsman was not with them; then I inquired of my fellow-Schützen when we should be in Meissen; as then I thought I might venture to kill the geese; they answered, 'Now we are there.' So I took a stone, threw it at one of the geese, and hit it on the leg; the others flew away, but the lamed one could not rise. I took another stone, and hit it on the head, so that it fell down. I ran up and caught the goose by the neck, carried it under my coat, and went along the road through the village. Then came the gooseherd running after me, and called aloud in the village, 'The boy has stolen my goose!' I and my fellow-Schützen fled away, and the feet of the goose hung out behind my coat. The peasants came out with spears to throw at us, and ran after us. When I saw that I could not escape with the goose, I let it fall, and sprang out of the road into the bushes; but two of my fellows ran along the street, and were overtaken by two peasants. Then they fell down on their knees, and asked for mercy, as they had done them no harm; and when the peasants saw that it was not they who had killed the goose, they returned to the village, taking the goose with them. But when I saw how they hastened after my fellows, I was in great trouble, and said to myself: 'Ah, my God! I think I have not blessed myself this day.' (For I had been taught to bless myself every morning.) When the peasants returned to the village, they found our Bacchanten in the public-house, for these had gone forward; and the peasants desired that they would pay for the goose: it would have been about two batzen; but I know not whether or no they paid. When they joined us again, they laughed, and asked how it had happened. I excused myself, as I had imagined it was the custom of the country; to which they said it was not yet the right moment.
"Another time a murderer came to us in the wood, eleven miles on this side of Nuremberg, who wished to play with our Bacchanten, that he might delay us till his fellows joined him; but we had an honest fellow amongst us called Anthony Schallbether, who warned the murderer to leave us, which he did. Now it was so late that we could hardly get to the village; there were very few houses, but there were two taverns. When we came to one of these the murderer was there before us, and others besides, without doubt his comrades; so we would not remain there, and went to the other public-house. As they themselves had already that night had their food, every one was so busy in the house, they would not give anything to us little lads; for we never sat at table to our meals; neither would they take us to a bedroom; but we were obliged to lie in the stable. But when they were taking the bigger ones to their bedroom, Anthony said to the host: 'Host, methinks you have strange guests, and are not much better yourself. I tell you what, place us in safety, or we will treat you in such a way that you will find your house too narrow for you.' When they had taken them to rest (I and the other little boys were lying in the stable without supper), some persons came in the night to their room, perhaps among them the host himself, and would have opened the door; but Anthony had put a screw before the lock inside, placed his bed before the door and struck a light; for he had always wax tapers and a tinder-box by him, and he quickly woke up the other fellows. When the rogues heard that, they made off. In the morning we found neither host nor servants. When they told us boys about it, we were all glad that nothing had happened to us in the stable. After we had gone from thence about a mile, we met with people, who when they heard where we had passed the night, were surprised that we had not all been murdered; for almost all the villagers were suspected of being murderers.
"Our Bacchanten treated us so badly that some of us told my cousin Paulus we should escape from them; so we went to Dresden; but here there was no good school, and the sleeping apartments for strange scholars were full of lice, so that we heard them at night crawl on the straw. We then left and went on to Breslau: we suffered much from hunger on the road, having nothing for some days to eat but raw onions and salt, or roasted acorns and crabs. Many nights we lay in the open air; for no one would receive us into their houses or at the inns, and often they set the dogs upon us. But when we arrived at Breslau, everything was in abundance; indeed so cheap that we poor scholars overate ourselves, and frequently made ourselves ill. We went at first to the chapter school of the Holy Cross, but when we found that there were some Swiss in the parsonage house at St. Elizabeth, we went there. The city of Breslau has seven parishes, and each its separate school: no scholar ventured to sing in another parish; if he did the cry of 'Ad idem, ad idem,' was raised, and the Schützen collected together and fought. It is said that there were at one time some thousands of Bacchanten and Schützen who all lived on alms; it is also said that some of them who were twenty or thirty years old, or even more, had their Schützen who supported them. I have often of an evening carried home to the school where they lived, for my Bacchanten, five or six meals. People gave to me willingly because I was little, and a Swiss, for they loved the Swiss.
"There I remained for some time, as I was very ill that winter, and they were obliged to take me to the hospital; the scholars had their own especial hospital and doctors, and sixteen hellers a week are given at the town hall for the use of the sick, which provided for us well. We were well nursed and had good beds, but there were lice therein, beyond belief, as big as hempseed, so that I and others would much rather have lain on the floor than in the beds. It is hardly possible to believe how the scholars and Bacchanten were covered with lice. I have ofttimes, especially in the summer, gone to wash my shirt in the water of the Oder, and hung it on a bush to dry; and in the mean time cleared my coat of the lice, buried the heap, and placed a cross over the spot. In the winter the Schützen used to lie on the hearth in the school; but the Bacchanten lived in small rooms, of which there were some hundreds at St. Elizabeth; but during the summer, when it was hot, we lay in the churchyard, like pigs in straw, on grass which we collected from before the houses of the principal streets, where it was spread on Sundays; but when it rained we ran into the school, and if there was a storm we chanted almost all night the responsoria and other things with the succentor. We often went in summer after supper to the beerhouses to beg for beer: they gave us the strong Polish peasant beer, which, before I was aware of it, made me so drunk that even when within a stone's throw from the school I could not find my way to it. In short, we got sufficient nourishment, but little study.
"In the school of St. Elizabeth, nine bachelors always read together at the same hour in one room, for there were no printed Greek books in the country at that time; the preceptor alone had a printed Terence: what was read, therefore, had first to be dictated, then parsed and construed, and lastly explained; so that the Bacchanten when they went away carried with them large sheets of writing.
"From thence our eight went off again to Dresden, and fell into great want. We determined therefore one day to divide ourselves; some were to look out for geese, some for turnips and onions, and one for a kitchen pot; but we little ones went to the town of Neumarkt, to get bread and salt, and we were to meet together in the evening outside the town, where we were to camp out, and then cook what we had. There was a well about a stone's throw from the town, near which we wished to pass the night; but when they saw our fire in the town, they began to shoot at us, yet did not hit us. Then we retired