Part 12 (1/2)
”Knowest thou,” asked friend Eckhardt, ”whence comes the term school-fox?”
”Not clearly?”
”Then hear! M. Just Ludwig Brismann, born at Triptis, in Voiglande, who had been schoolmaster in Hof, Zwickau, and Naumburg, and who died Professor of Greek in Jena, on the 19th of August, 1585, was accustomed to wear a greatcoat lined with fox-skin. This sort of clothing, which he had been used to wear before he came to live at Jena, he still continued to sport there. The students in Jena looked upon this raiment, which was then quite out of date and very singular, as so odd that they made game of it, and those of them who had previously known him as schoolmaster, dubbed him School-fox. Thence sprung the name of school-foxery, which comprehends every thing pedantic, contemptible, and degrading.”
”And may I ask,” I added, ”what you pay this precious Bursche for his important services? I ask, since I think of staying here this winter, and would therefore willingly enlighten myself on all matters of housekeeping.”
”He receives a gulden (twenty-pence English) monthly.”
”A servant for a pound a-year! Was the like ever heard!”
”You must recollect,” said Freisleben, ”that we are for the rest of the day attended by the house-besom,” the student phrase for housemaid, who also in Berlin is styled _schlavin_, or she-slave.
”Hast thou heard the anecdote,” interrupted Eckhardt, ”of Schmidt's answer to our boot-fox the other morning?”
”No; let us hear it.”
”The Famulus came very early to Schmidt's bedside, and said, very laconically--'the Geheimrath Forst is dead to-night. Have you any other commands?' 'Yes,' answered Schmidt, still heavy with sleep, 'I command the Geheimrath Langsam (a very rich and miserly old gentleman) to die too, and to make me his heir.'”
”Famously answered!” said Freisleben; ”but, Mr. Traveller, you would know more of our household regulations. Our House-Philistine must provide for all our domestic necessaries, bringing in the account monthly, which, however, we are not obliged so very exactly to pay.
They furnish us with wood, lights, etc. Breakfast we commonly brew for ourselves, in its proper machine. For the lodging, consisting of two rooms, we pay perhaps from thirty to forty gulden, and the house-besom receives besides, each semester, two kronen thaler--nine s.h.i.+llings, English.”
”Upon my word, you live right reasonably in Heidelberg.”
”Not quite so much so as you imagine. If you take into the account the expense of the college lectures, you cannot well, at least pleasantly, live under 800 or 1000 gulden. There are universities where you may live much cheaper, but few where you can live so agreeably as here. You know how Lichtenberg has divided the sciences. So I might here divide the universities into such as where a man may live cheaply and well, to which cla.s.s Munich and Vienna particularly belong; where he may live cheap and badly, as in many of the smaller universities, particularly Halle, which affords only nutriment for the hungerers after knowledge; where he may live well and somewhat expensively, as at Heidelberg; and finally, where he may live dearly and ill, of which the great Berlin is an example. I speak here only of the material life, apart from which, every university has its peculiarities in many respects; in short, has its own _ton_. When you have learnt thoroughly to understand Heidelberg, and then afterwards visit other German universities, what a variety will you not find.”
”I would gladly learn,” said I, ”the differences of these various universities which you say are so characteristic. It is a very interesting subject.”
”But a long one,” said my friend, ”which we must reserve for another occasion. But,” turning to Freisleben, he added, ”I forgot to tell you something which the Boot-fox has communicated.”
”What is it?” asked Freisleben.
”The Widow Mutch begs that she may be allowed to speak with thee.”
”And what wants she?”
”O, she creeps humbly to the cross, and prays earnestly that we will again take our meals there.”
”Well, if she behaves herself, we will see what the S. C. can do.”
”That,” said I, ”if I remember right, is the woman whom you said had been put into _verruf_, or under the bann.”
”The same.”
”And are all the students, then, accustomed to take their dinners there?”
”O, no. Part of them at the Gasthouses (inns); part here and there, with private people, who keep a table for us, and even send us, if required, our meals up into our chambers. About thirty of us took our dinners at this aforesaid widow's, and paid each twenty kreutzers the day (not quite seven-pence). But towards the conclusion of the last semester, it was no longer to be endured! simply and eternally cow-beef--and at last it grew still worse. Thereupon it was absolutely necessary to give Madame, the Philistine, a lecture.”
”Excuse me,” I interrupted, ”but I must first beg for a solution of the term Philistine, which you so often use.”