Then the fate that befell the brothers dissolved the school friendship, until many years after, Edwin met this half-forgotten comrade in Berlin. In outward appearance he had changed very much. The thin, shy boy, had become a sturdy, black-bearded, defiant youth, a person whom all well-bred and well-dressed people would avoid in the street, especially in winter, when a coarse red shawl, which he wore twisted around his neck, contributed not a little to the oddity of his appearance. In mind and disposition he had remained exactly the same; awkward, silent, and gentle, but as soon as his fixed idea was touched, would burst into a flood of stormy eloquence that swept all before it. Edwin had also had occasion, in student circles, to perceive how the same man, who in a small company could scarcely finish his sentences properly, and in individual debate was easily confused and silenced, would fearlessly address a crowd. He had a vehemently dogmatic mind, together with the nature of a true agitator, and he liked to utter the few cardinal principles of his belief in full, ringing tones, but he required for his encouragement, the echo of listening multitudes. Then the deeper water, in which he felt at ease, supported and bore him on, while, when out of the channel, he instantly became uncertain, and from diffidence, especially in the presence of Edwin's intellect and knowledge, he easily yielded, and ceased firing his heavy rhetorical artillery. But it was not only Edwin's superiority that attracted him. He had become warmly attached to his old friend for a very different reason. That he should now find the latter--whom as the petted child of parents in comfortable circumstances, he had always beheld on the farther side of a wide social gulf--dependent on his own exertions, and living almost as plainly as he himself lived, secretly afforded him pleasure, much as he wished him all possible prosperity. It threw down the barriers between them and placed him on the same footing as his former schoolfellow, but he was completely melted when Balder, whom he had known and petted as a little boy, joined his brother, and with his turning-lathe took up likewise the character of a "workman" in the true sense of the word. According to his father's desire he himself had studied law and had passed his first examination very creditably. But as soon as old Franzelius closed his eyes, Reinhold with his Gracchus-like scorn, became faithless to his career, apprenticed himself to a printer, and regularly served his time. Now for the first time his heart burst its bonds. He felt himself, in affliction, the equal of his brothers "the workmen," and resolved to devote all his energies to the improvement of their lot.