Others however were more complacent, and I heard one rogue boasting how he had committed a robbery four months since and his conscience now felt “white as a new dropped lamb.” All of which made me think more hard thoughts of Master Tetzel. Shortly before noon we saw lifting above the plain to westward the tall round tower of the “Castle Church” of Wittenberg, and beside it the lower twin towers of the “Parish Church,” and presently the capital town of Electoral Saxony spread out its walls and houses before us. Often have I recalled that first sight of the little city wherein my whole life, yes, and the whole life of half of wide Christendom, was to be run as through a crucible, and changed--changed so that only the shadow of our old uncouth selves remained. I remember the feeling of disappointment when on passing the gate I saw the muddy, ill-paved streets, where lean hens and dirty geese were picking in the piles of offal. I saw too the long, ill-built street of ugly wooden houses, the only thoroughfare of the city. Even as we came under the gate we met two drunken students belaboring one another with sturdy cudgels, while a ring of more sober comrades stood by, urging them merrily to “lay on!” “A scurvy hole,” I commented to Moritz, and he cheerfully replied that Wittenberg was reputed “the most drunken town in Germany,” adding, however, that since the establishment of the new University things had been somewhat on the mend. Luckily we found the town a little less obnoxious as we proceeded west along the Collegien-strasse, and at last before the sombre, unpretending Schloss we found the palatial home of the elector’s castellan, the Freiherr von Steinitz, who with his noble lady granted us worthy hospitality. It was my first sight of a German patrician’s city house, and the display of gold and silver plate, the rare Venetian glass, the costly tapestries, the paintings by Memling, the engravings by Dürer, the rich massive furniture covered with delicate carving,--all these told of a taste and elegance worthy of the best palazzo in Rome. The Prince Elector was absent from the city, but I was assured there were gentlemen at the Schloss well worth my acquaintance and company. As for Gräfin Ilsa she was happy as a bird in her aunt’s enlivening society, and there were soon half a dozen young ritters pranked out in their best, and hanging around the Freiherr’s great hall all day for a chance to have a few words with her, and show her the sights of Wittenberg. They were a little disgusted, perhaps, to learn that she was most interested in the marvellous collection of saints’ relics assembled by the pious elector at the Castle Church. She told us that evening about all the wonders she had met,--five thousand infallible and genuine relics of the holy ones, including some skin from the face of St. Bartholomew, drops of the milk of Mary, a piece of the rod of Aaron, and some straw whereon the Christchild lay.