alliance with them, which was based upon these two fundamental principles: I write your tasks, and, in return, you neither molest me yourself nor allow anybody else to molest me. I must admit that the treaty was always religiously observed. When I was seventeen my teacher decreed that I had been for a year ripe for the University, and this was true, if we understand by it that I was as full of learning as the yolk of an egg, but in every other respect as ignorant and helpless as a chick that has just broke the shell. It was a matter of course that I must study theology. The sons of former captains are made cadets, and the sons of country parsons go to the seminary; that is as much a matter of course as any part of natural history. Well, I studied divinity; that is, I attended lectures diligently, and wrote whole wagon-loads of most abstruse erudition. Otherwise I continued very much the same kind of life I had led before; I had even kept my garret and gave my private lessons as heretofore, especially as one of my younger brothers was now staying with me who fell heir to all my little privileges. The three years' course passed away monotonously enough, but not unpleasantly. One day looked very much like all the others, only Wednesday appeared somewhat dismal to me, because on that day we had pork and beans for dinner, a dish which I have never been able to like, in spite of my liberal views on such subjects. It reminded me always too forcibly of the beautiful summer mornings when I sat by the side of my Eumæus posthumus, reading Virgil's eclogues, and I could not swallow anything. You may think that sentimental, but we all have our foibles. Of actual life I saw about that time as much as a camel sees of the desert in a menagerie. The number of my friends was very small, strictly proportioned to my means; for I have noticed that the wealthier students are seen in lots together, while the poorer walk singly through the streets. I do not know if it is so in life also. But I had an enormous respect for these wealthier students, for there are some even in Grunwald, and in my eyes every one of them who had a hundred a year was a Cr[oe]sus. These mustached puss in boots appeared to me like select creatures, and I could never quite comprehend how a government, otherwise so anxiously concerned for the repose of its subjects, could allow them to go about in such perfect freedom. I must confess that I lived this three years in constant apprehension of a challenge. Not that I am lacking in personal courage. I have fortunately had several times occasion to convince myself of the contrary; but I was afraid of the embarrassment such an event might produce. I always looked upon students' duels as the most abominable nonsense, injurious to health, but far more injurious to morality, for the custom compels young men to subject their thoughts and their feelings to a Moloch of barbarous notions about honor, the most ridiculous caricature of a moral code.