Part 14 (2/2)

His name was Julian, said the priest.

They wished each other well and said goodbye.

A few steps further, a woman addressed him. His knees went weak with fright, for he'd heard of such things. He hurried on, didn't turn round when she ran after him, and never realized that all she had wanted to say to him was that he had dropped his cap. He drank two gla.s.ses of beer in a tavern. Arms crossed, he looked at the wet tabletop. He had never felt so sad. Not because of his father, because he was almost always that way, and not because of his loneliness. It was something to do with the city itself. The crowds, the size of the houses, the dirty sky. He composed some lines of poetry. They didn't please him. He stared straight ahead until two students in loose trousers and with fas.h.i.+onably long hair came to sit at his table.

Gottingen, asked one of the students. A notorious place. Things were blowing up there.

Eugen nodded conspiratorially although he had no idea what they were talking about.

But it'll come, said the other student, freedom, in spite of everything.

It would certainly come, said Eugen.

Right away, said the first, and like a thief in the night.

Now they knew they had something in common.

An hour later, they were on the way. As was the custom among students, Eugen went ahead with one of them, arm in arm, while the other followed thirty paces behind, so that they wouldn't be stopped by any gendarme. Eugen couldn't understand how anything could be so far: always more new streets, always another crossroads, and even the sheer numbers of people also walking seemed inexhaustible. Where were they all going, and how could anyone live like that?

Humboldt's new university, explained the student next to Eugen, it was the best in the world, organized like no other and with the most famous teachers in the country. The state feared it like h.e.l.l itself.

Humboldt had founded a university?

The elder one, the student explained. The respectable one. Not the one who was a lackey of the French and had squatted in Paris for the duration of the war. His brother had openly summoned him to arms, but he'd behaved as if the Fatherland meant nothing. During the occupation, he'd had a plaque put up in front of his castle in Berlin, saying no plundering, the owner was a member of the Paris Academy. Disgraceful!

The street went steeply uphill, then gradually downward again. Two young men stood in front of a door and asked for the pa.s.sword.

Free in the fight.

That was from last time.

The second student came up to them. The two of them whispered together. Germania?

That was ages ago.

German and free?

Oh my G.o.d. The guardians exchanged a look, and told them to go in anyway.

They went downstairs and into a cellar room that smelled of mold. Crates stood on the floor and there were wine casks piled in the corners. The two students turned up the lapels of their coats to reveal black and red c.o.c.kades st.i.tched through with gold. They opened a trapdoor in the floor. A narrow stair led down into another, deeper cellar.

Six rows of chairs in front of a rickety standing desk. Black and red pennants hung on the walls, and about twenty students were already waiting. All had sticks, some were wearing Polish caps, others Old German hats. Several of them were dressed up in home-tailored wide trousers with broad medieval belts. Torches threw dancing shadows on the walls. Eugen sat down, feeling faint from the bad air and the excitement. They were saying, someone whispered, that ”he” was coming himself. Him, or someone like him, they didn't know, he had been arrested in Freiburg at the River Unstrut, yet apparently he was still wandering the country incognito. Unimaginable, if he was here in person. Your heart would explode if you saw him in the flesh.

More and more students came in, always in twos, always arm in arm, most of them arguing about the pa.s.sword which clearly none of them had known. Here and there one of them leafed through a book of poetry or German Gymnastics. German Gymnastics. Some moved their lips in prayer. Eugen's heart was thumping. All the seats had been filled long ago, any new arrival had to squeeze himself into a corner. Some moved their lips in prayer. Eugen's heart was thumping. All the seats had been filled long ago, any new arrival had to squeeze himself into a corner.

A man came down the stairs with a heavy tread, and everything went quiet. He was thin, and very tall, with a bald head and a long gray beard. It was, somehow not to Eugen's surprise, their neighbor from the next table in the inn, who had b.u.t.ted into their argument with the gendarme the day before. Slowly, arms swinging, he made his way to the desk. There he stretched, waited until a student, who was having trouble with his trembling hands and had to try more than once, lit the candles on it, and then said in a high-pitched, dry voice: You must not know my name!

Way at the back a student groaned. Otherwise it was completely still.

The bearded man raised his arm, waved it, pointed at it with his other hand, and asked if anyone recognized what this was.

No one answered, no one breathed. So he said it himself: muscles.

You are the brave, he went on after a long pause, you are the young, you are the strong, and you must become stronger still! He cleared his throat. If you want to become thinkers, if you want to read deep, all the way to fundamentals, if you want to touch the very essence of things, you must discipline your bodies. Thinking minus muscles is weakness, it's slack, it's insipid, it's French. A child prays for the Fatherland, a young man is wild for it, but the man fights for it and suffers. He bent over and stayed that way for a moment, before pulling up his trouser leg into regular folds. Here too! He thumped his fist on his calf. Pure and strong, ready to do knee bends or leg extensions, anyone who wanted could come and feel it. He straightened up again and glared around the room for some seconds before thundering: This leg is strong. Germany must be like this leg!

Eugen managed to steal a glance at his neighbors. Several of the audience were gaping, many were in tears, one had closed his eyes and was trembling. His neighbor was chewing his fingers in excitement. Eugen blinked. The air was now even worse and the shadow play of the torches made him think he was part of a far larger crowd. He forced himself to swallow down his own tears.

Nothing must force a comrade to bow, said the bearded man. The enemy must be met face to face, chest to chest. What was oppressing the people was not the strength of the enemy but their own weakness. They were tied and bound. He struck his chest with the flat of his hand. They couldn't breathe, they couldn't move, they didn't know what to do with their own G.o.d-given will and brave innocence. Princes, French pests, and priests held them in their power, keeping them coddled and lulled into thumb-sucking sleep. But comrades.h.i.+p meant standing together, pure and devout. It meant thinking! He made a fist and struck his forehead. Thinking would make a holy alliance that no Satan could tear apart. Eventually it would lead to the true German church and the conquest of Being. But what did this mean, comrades? He stretched his arms wide, squatted down slowly, then up again. This signified taking control of the body, schooling it-and up, and down, and climb that rope, and stretch and bend-until one was made whole. But where were things today? Just now, while he was traveling incognito, he had been witness to an old man and a student, a German man and his son, two loyal men, being hara.s.sed by the police, because they didn't have papers with them. He had courageously interfered, as a German must, and praise be, he had overwhelmed the tyrant bailiffs. Daily one encountered injustice, of every kind and everywhere, and who should defend against it if not good comrades, who had renounced alcohol and women, and dedicated themselves to strength, Germany's monks, fresh and G.o.dly, gay and free? The men of France had been driven out, now it was the princes' turn, the Unholy Alliance would not stand for long, philosophy must seize reality and cudgel a way through, it was time to take command again! He rocked up against the desk and Eugen heard himself and the others cheering. The bearded man stood calmly, very straight, his piercing eyes fixed on the crowd. Suddenly his expression changed, and he took a step back.

Eugen felt a draft. The yelling died away. Five men had walked in: a little old man and four gendarmes.

Good G.o.d, said the man next to Eugen. The proctor.

He knew it, said the old man to the gendarmes. All anyone had to do was to watch them all walking around in twos. Luckily they were really that stupid.

Three gendarmes stayed standing in front of the stairs, while one went to the speaker's desk. The bearded man suddenly looked a lot thinner and a lot shorter. He raised a hand over his head, but the threatening gesture had the wrong effect and he was immediately handcuffed.

He wouldn't give way, he cried as the policeman led him to the steps, not to force and not to pleas. His valiant comrades would not permit it. This was the moment when the storm would break. Then, as he was being shoved up the stairs: it was a misunderstanding, he could explain it. Then he was gone.

He was going to fetch reinforcements, said the bailiff, and hurried up the steps.

No talking, said one of the gendarmes. Not a word from anyone to anyone. Otherwise they wouldn't believe what would land on their heads.

Eugen began to cry.

He wasn't the only one. Several young men were sobbing uncontrollably. Two of them who had leapt to their feet sat down again. Fifty students with k.n.o.bbed sticks, thought Eugen, and three policemen. Only one of them had to attack and the others would follow. And what if it was him? He could do it. For a few seconds he imagined it. Then he knew he was too much of a coward. He wiped his tears away and stayed sitting in silence while the bailiff came back with twenty gendarmes under the command of a big officer with a walrus mustache.

Take them, the officer ordered, first interrogation in the lockup to get the facts, tomorrow hand-over to the competent authorities.

A slight young boy went down on his knees to him, clasped his boots, and begged for leniency. The officer stared at the ceiling, upset and embarra.s.sed, until a gendarme hauled the boy away. Eugen used the moment to tear a page out of his notebook and write the news to his father. Before he was handcuffed he was able to crumple the paper and hide it in his fist.

Police wagons were waiting on the street. The prisoners sat squashed together on long benches with gendarmes standing behind them. By chance Eugen found himself sitting diagonally opposite the bearded man, who was staring dully into s.p.a.ce.

Should we make a break for it, whispered a student.

It was a misunderstanding, the bearded man replied, his name was Kosselrieder, he came from Silesia, and he'd stumbled into this. A gendarme hit him on the shoulder with his iron rod and he subsided, muttering quietly to himself.

Anyone else, asked the gendarme.

n.o.body moved. The doors shut with a crash and they set off.

THE E ETHER.

Eyes half-closed, Humboldt talked of stars and currents. His voice was quiet, but it was audible throughout the reception hall. He stood before the gigantic stage set of a night sky, with stars on it that formed concentric circles: Sc.h.i.n.kel's scenery for The Magic Flute The Magic Flute, re-erected for this occasion. Between the stars someone had inscribed the names of German scientists: Buch, Savigny Hufeland, Bessel, Klaproth, Humboldt, and Gauss. The hall was filled to the last seat: monocles and spectacles, a myriad of uniforms, softly waving fans, and in the center box, the motionless figures of the crown prince and his wife. Gauss was sitting in the first row.

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