But amongst those who derive principally from the students their
support, we must not forget the respectable, discreet, and amiable
woman, who is to be found stationed every day at the corner of the
university platz. Here the worthy Frau Gottliebin displays her
treasures for sale,--cherries, grapes, plums, whatever fruit in fact
the season affords, and of the finest quality, separated into small
baskets-full. Every change of the season marks itself upon her stall by
the apparition of some new luxury, and at Easter it is gay with
many-coloured Easter-eggs for the children. In Germany, it is said,
"sixty kreutzers make also a gulden," and the wisdom of this proverb
has proved itself on this good woman. She not only possesses a small
house of her own, but her son has studied at the university, taken his
degree, and is already advanced to the dignity of a curate in the
church; yes, the worthy old dame yet hopes, and that soon, to be able
to congratulate him as pastor of a parish. Her daughter is married to a
surgeon in the Upper Rhineland, and when from time to time the stand of
the old lady is vacant, in front of the well-known Pfalz-hotel, nobody
is afraid that it is because she is ill, or because the weather is too
severe for her; for summer and winter, in the hottest sunshine and the
bitterest frost, there she is at her post,--no, there is a new
grandchild expected, and Frau Gottliebin has disappeared to pay a visit
to her daughter. She has numbered many of the present teachers of the
university amongst her customers, and takes a lively interest in the
members of the institution. She is also very free with well-meaning
advice when the course of life of any of the sons of the Muses is not
to her satisfaction. The stranger who has not tasted of her wares we
may well advise to cast an observant eye on her stall as he passes it,
and can promise him, if he chooses from it, a luxurious refreshment.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF THE STUDENT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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