The Pictures of German Life Throughout History. Gustav Freytag

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 behind a bank to a little stream and grove; the big fellows lopped off branches and made a kind of hut, some plucked the geese, of which we had two; others put the heads and feet and the giblets into the pot, in which they had shred the turnips, others made two wooden spits and roasted the meat; when it had become a little brown, we ate it with the turnips. In the night we heard a kind of flapping: we found there was a pond near us which had been drained in the day, and the fish were struggling in the mud; then we took as many of them as we could, in a shirt fastened on a stick, and went away to a village, where we gave some of them to a peasant, that he might cook the others for us in beer.

      "Soon after we went again from thence to Ulm, there Paulus took with him another lad called Hildebrand Kalbermatter, son of a Pfaff: he was quite young, and had some cloth given to him, such as is made in that country, for a little coat. When we came to Ulm, Paul desired me to go about with the cloth begging for money to pay for its making up; in this way I got much money, for I was well accustomed to begging in God's name, for the Bacchanten had constantly employed me in this, so that I had hardly ever been taken to school, and not once taught to read. Going thus seldom to the school, and having to give up to the Bacchanten all I got by going round with the cloth, I suffered much from hunger.

      "But I must not omit to mention that there was at Ulm a pious widow, who had two grown-up daughters; this widow had often, when I came in the winter, wrapped up my feet in a warm fur, which she had laid behind the stove on purpose to warm them, and gave me a dish of porridge and sent me home. I was sometimes so hungry that I drove the dogs in the streets away from their bones, and gnawed them; item, searched for the crumbs out of the bag, which I ate. After that we returned again to Munich: there also I had to beg for money to make up the cloth, which nevertheless was not mine. The year following we went once more to Ulm, and I brought the cloth with me, and again begged on account of it; and I remember well that some one said to me, 'Botz Marter! is not the coat made yet? I believe you are employed in knavish work.' We went from thence, and I know not what happened to the cloth, or whether or no the coat was ever made up. One Sunday, when we came to Munich, the Bacchanten had got a lodging, but we three little Schützen had none; we intended therefore to go at night to the corn market, in order to lie on the corn sacks; and certain women were sitting in the street by the salt magazine, who inquired where we were going. When they heard that we had no lodging, a butcher's wife who was near, when she saw that we were Swiss, said to her maid, 'Run and hang up the boiler with the remains of the soup and meat; they shall stay with me over the night; I like all Swiss. I served once at an inn in Innspruck, when the Emperor Maximilian held his court there: the Swiss had much business to arrange with him; and they were so friendly that I shall always be kind to them as long as I live.' The woman gave us good lodging, and plenty to eat and drink. In the morning she said to us, 'If one of you would like to remain with me, I would give him food and lodging.' We were all willing to do so, and inquired which she wished to have: when she had inspected us, as I looked more bold than the others, she took me, and I had nothing to do but to get the beer, to fetch the meat from the shambles, and to go with her sometimes to the field; but still I had to provide for the Bacchant. This the woman did not like, and said to me, 'Botz Marter! let the Bacchant go, and remain with me; you shall not beg any more.' So for a whole week I did not return to my Bacchant, nor the school; then he came to the house of the butcher's wife, and knocked at the door; and she said to me, 'Your Bacchant is there; say that you are ill.' She let him in, and said to him, 'You are truly a fine gentleman; you should have looked after Thomas, for he has been ill, and is so still.' Then he said to me, 'I am sorry for it, lad: when you can go out again, come to me.' Some time after, one Sunday, I went to vespers, and when they were over, my Bacchant came up to me and said, 'You Schütz, if you do not come to me, I will trample you under foot.' This I determined he should not do, and made up my mind to run away. That Sunday I said to the butcher's wife, 'I will go to the school and wash my shirt.' I dared not tell her of my intention, for I feared she would speak of it. So I left Munich with a sorrowful heart, partly because I was leaving my cousin, with whom I had gone so far (though he had been so hard and unmerciful to me), and also on account of the butcher's wife, who had treated me so kindly. I journeyed on over the river Isar, for I feared if I went to Switzerland, Paulus would follow me, and beat me, as he had often threatened. On the other side of the Isar there is a hill. I seated myself on the top, looked upon the town, and wept bitterly, because I had no longer any one to take an interest in me, and I thought of going to Saltzburg, or Vienna, in Austria. Whilst I was sitting there a peasant came with a waggon, which had carried salt to Munich: he was already drunk, though the sun had only just risen. I begged him to let me sit in it, and I went with him till he unharnessed the horses in order to give them and himself food; meanwhile I begged through the village, and waiting for him not far from it, fell asleep. When I awoke I again wept bitterly, for I thought the peasant had gone on, and it appeared to me as if I had lost a father. Soon, however, he came, and was still drunk, but called to me to sit in the cart, and asked me where I wished to go; I replied, 'To Saltzburg.' When it was evening, he turned off from the road, and said, 'Get down, there is the road to Saltzburg.' We had gone eight miles that day. I came to a village, and when I got up in the morning everything was white with rime, as if it had snowed, and I had no shoes, only torn stockings, no cap, and a scanty jacket. Thus I travelled to Passau, and intended to get on the Danube and go to Vienna, but when I came to Passau they would not admit me. Then I thought of going to Switzerland, and I asked the guard at the gate the nearest way to Switzerland: he answered by Munich. I said, 'I will not go by Munich, I had rather travel ten miles, or even more, out of the way to avoid it.' Then he pointed out the way by Friesingen. СКАЧАТЬ