"A midsummer day's entertainment--but how? In February? Yea, somehere and behold it!"--DR. BALFUNGO.
With us the students form no Burschenschafts, have no colors. Theprofessors do not alone in the chair come into connection withthem; the only difference is that which exists between young andold scholars. Thus they come in contact with each other, thus theyparticipate in their mutual pleasures. We will spend an evening ofthis kind in the Students' Club, and then see for ourselves whetherMiss Sophie were right when she wished she were a man, merely thatshe might be a student and member of this club. We choose oneevening in particular, not only that we may seek a brilliantmoment, but because this evening can afford us more than adescription.
An excursion to the park had often been discussed in the club. Theywished to hire the Caledonia steam-packet. But during the summermonths the number of members is less; the majority are gone to theprovinces to visit their relations. Winter, on the contrary,assembles them all. This time, also, is the best for greatundertakings. The long talked of excursion to the park wastherefore fixed for Carnival Monday, the 14th of February, 1831.Thus ran the invitations to the professors and older members. "Itwill be too cold for me," replied one. "Must one take a carriagefor one's self?" asked mother. No, the park was removed toCopenhagen. In the Students' Club itself, in the Boldhuus Street,No. 225, was the park-hill with its green trees, its swings,and amusements. See, only the scholars of the Black School couldhave such ideas!
The evening of the 114th of February drew near. The guestsassembled in the rooms on the first floor. Meanwhile all wasarranged in the second story. Those who represented jugglers werein their places. A thundering cracker was the steamboat signal, andnow people hastened to the park, rushing up-stairs, where two largerooms had, with great taste and humor, been converted into thepark-hill. Large fir-trees concealed the walls--you found yourselfin a complete wood. The doors which connected the two rooms weredecorated with sheets, so that it looked as if you were goingthrough a tent. Hand-organs played, drums and trumpets roared, andfrom tents and stages the hawkers shouted one against the other.It was a noise such as is heard in the real park when the hubbubhas reached its height. The most brilliant requisites of the realpark were found here, and they were not imitated; they were thethings themselves. Master Jakel's own puppets had been hired; astudent, distinguished by his complete imitation of the firstactors, represented them by the puppets. The fortress ofFrederiksteen was the same which we have already seen in the park."The whole cavalry and infantry,--here a fellow without a bayonet,there a bayonet without a fellow!" The old Jew sat under his treewhere he announced his fiftieth park jubilee: here a student ateflax, there another exhibited a bear; Polignac stood as a waxfigure outside a cabinet. The Magdalene convent exhibited itslittle boxes, the drum-major beat most lustily, and from a nearbooth came the real odor of warm wafer-cakes. The spring even,which presented itself in the outer room, was full of significance.Certainly it was only represented by a tea-urn concealed betweenmoss and stones, but the water was real water, brought from thewell in Christiansborg. Astounding and full of effect was themultitude of sweet young girls who showed themselves. Many of theyoungest students who had feminine features were dressed as ladies;some of them might even be called pretty. Who that then saw thefair one with the tambourine can have forgotten her? The companycrowded round the ladies. The professors paid court to them withall propriety, and, what was best of all, some ladies who were lesssuccessful became jealous of the others. Otto was much excited; thenoise, the bustle, the variety of people, were almost strikinglygiven. Then came the master of the fire-engines, with his wife andlittle granddaughter; then three pretty peasant girls; then thewhole Botanical Society, with their real professor at their head.Otto seated himself in a swing; an itinerant flute-player and adrummer deafened him with dissonances. A young lady, one of thebeauties, in a white dress, and with a thin handkerchief over hershoulders, approached and threw herself into his arms. It wasWilhelm! but Otto found his likeness to Sophie stronger than he hadever before noticed it to be; and therefore the blood rushed to hischeeks when the fair one threw her arms around him, and laid hercheek upon his: he perceived more of Sophie than of Wilhelm in thisform. Certainly Wilhelm's features were coarser--his whole figurelarger than Sophie's; but still Otto fancied he saw Sophie, andtherefore these marked gestures, this reeling about with the otherstudents, offended his eyes. When Wilhelm seated himself on hisknee, and pressed his cheek to his, Otto felt his heart beat as infever; it sent a stream of fire through his blood: he thrust himaway, but the fair one continued to overwhelm him with caresses.
There now commenced, in a so-called Kr鋒winkel theatre, the comedy,in which were given the then popular witticisms of Kellerman.
The lady clung fast to Otto, and flew dancing with him through thecrowd. The heat, the noise, and, above all, the exaggerated lacing,affected Wilhelm; he felt unwell. Otto led him to a bench and wouldhave unfastened his dress, but all the young ladies, true to theirpart, sprang forward, pushed Otto aside, surrounded their sickcompanion and concealed her, whilst they tore up the dress behindso that she might have air: but, God forbid! no gentleman might seeit.
Toward evening a song was commenced, a shot was heard, and the lastverse announced:--
"The gun has been fired, the vessel must fly To the town from the green wood shady.Come, friends, now we to the table will hie, A gentleman and a fair lady."
And now all rushed with the speed of a steamboat downstairs, andsoon sat in gay rows around the covered tables.
Wilhelm was Otto's lady--the Baron was called the Baroness; theglasses resounded, and the song commenced:--
"These will drink our good king's health, Will drink it here, his loyal students."
And that patriotic song:--
"I know a land up in the North Where it is good to be."
It concluded with--
"An hurrahFor the king and the rescript!"
In joy one must embrace everything joyful, and that theydid. Here was the joy of youth in youthful hearts.
"No condition's like the student's; He has chosen the better way!"
so ran the concluding verse of the following song, which ended withthe toast,--
"For her of whom the heart dreams ever, But whom the lips must never name!"
It was then that Wilhelm seemed to glow with inward fire; he struckhis glass so violently against Otto's that it broke, and the winewas spilt.
"A health to the ladies!" cried one of the signors.
"A health to the ladies!" resounded from the different rooms, whichwere all converted into the banquet-hall.
The ladies rose, stood upon their chairs, some even upon the table,bowed, and returned thanks for the toast.
"No, no," whispered Otto to Wilhelm, at the same time pulling himdown. "In this dress you resemble your sister so much, that it isquite horrible to me to see you act a part so opposed to hercharacter!"
"And your eyes," Said Wilhelm, smiling, "resemble two eyes whichhave touched my heart. A health to first love!" cried he, andstruck his glass against Otto's so that the half of his wine wasagain lost.
The champagne foamed, and amidst noise and laughter, as during thecarnival joy, a new song refreshed the image of the nark which theyhad just left:--
"Here if green trees were not growing Fresh as on yon little hill,Heard we not the fountains flowing, We in sooth should see them still!Tents were filled below, above,Filled with everything but love!
Here went gratis brushing-boys--Graduated have they all!Here stood, who would think it, sir?A student as a trumpeter!"
"A health to the one whose eyes mine resemble!" whispered Otto,carried along with the merriment.
"That health we have already drunk!" answered Wilhelm, "but wecannot do a good thing too often."
"Then you still think of Eva?"
"She was beautiful! sweet! who knows what might have happened hadshe remained here? Her fate has fallen into mamma's hands, and sheand the other exalted Nemesis must now conduct the affair: I washmy hands of it."
"Are you recovered?" asked Otto. "But when you see Eva again in thesummer?"
"I hope that I shall not fall sick," replied Wilhelm; "I have astrong constitution. But we must now hasten up to the dance."
All rushed from the tables, and up-stairs, where the park wasarranged. There was now only the green wood to be seen. Theatresand booths had been removed. Gay paper-lamps hung among the branches,a large orchestra played, and a half-bacchanalian wood-ball commenced.Wilhelm was Otto's partner, but after the first dance the lady soughtout for herself a more lively cavalier.
Otto drew back toward the wall where the windows were concealed bythe boughs of Fir-tree. His eye followed Wilhelm, whose greatresemblance to Sophie made him melancholy; his hand accidentallyglided through the branches and touched the window-seat; there laya little bird--it was dead!
To increase the illusion they had bought a number of birds, whichshould fly about during the park-scene, but the poor littlecreatures had died from fright at the wild uproar. In the windowsand corners they lay dead. It was one of these birds that Ottofound.
"It is dead!" said he to Wilhelm, who approached him.
"Now, that is capital!" returned the friend; "here you havesomething over which you may be sentimental!"
Otto would not reply.
"Shall we dance a Scotch waltz?" asked Wilhelm laughing, and thewine and his youthful blood glowed in his cheeks.
"I wish you would put on your own dress!" said Otto. "You resemble,as I said before, your sister"--
"And I am my sister," interrupted Wilhelm, in his wantonness. "Andas a reward for your charming readings aloud, for your excellentconversation, and the whole of your piquant amiability, you shallnow be paid with a little kiss!" He pressed his lips to Otto'sforehead; Otto thrust him back and left the company.
Several hours passed before he could sleep; at length he was forcedto laugh over his anger: what mattered it if Wilhelm resembled hissister?
The following morning Otto paid her a visit. All listened withlively interest to his description of the merry St. John's day inFebruary. He also related how much Wilhelm had resembled hissister, and how unpleasant this had been to him; and they laughed.During the relation, however, Otto could not forbear drawing acomparison. How great a difference did he now find! Sophie's beautywas of quite another kind! Never before had he regarded her in thislight. Of the kisses which Wilhelm had given him, of course, theydid not speak; but Otto thought of them, thought of them quitedifferently to what he had done before, and--the ways of Cupid arestrange! We will now see how affairs stand after advancing fourteendays.