“Ah, but my dear boy, this is the great common people!” Crammon instructed him with a mixture of arrogance and mockery. “Thus do they sing and drink and--smell. ‘And calmly flows the Rhine.’ Your health, your Highness!” He always called Christian that among strangers, and was delighted when those who overheard showed a respectful curiosity. As a matter of fact, several of the men at their table looked at them in some consternation, and then whispered among themselves. A young girl with blond braids of hair wreathed about her head had entered the garden. She stopped near the entrance, and looked searchingly from table to table. The students laughed, and one called out to her. She hesitated shyly. Yet she went up to him. “Whom are you looking for, pretty maiden?” a freshman asked. The girl did not answer. “Hide in the pitcher for your forwardness,” a senior cried. “It is for me to ask.” The freshman grinned, and took a long draught of beer. “What do you desire, little maiden?” the senior asked in a beery voice. “Have you come to fetch your father, who clings too lovingly to his jug?” The girl blushed and nodded. She was asked to give her name, and said it was Katherine Zöllner. Her father, she said, was a boatman. She spoke softly, yet so that Christian and Crammon understood what she said. Her father was due to join his ship for Cologne at three o’clock in the morning. “For Cologne,” the senior growled. “Give me a kiss, and I’ll find your father for you.” The girl trembled and recoiled. But the fraternity approved of the demand, and roared applause. “Don’t pretend!” the senior said. He got up, put his arms roughly about her waist, and, despite her resistance and fright, he kissed her. “Me, too! Me, too!” The cries arose from the others. The girl had already been passed on to a second, a third snatched her, then a fourth, fifth, sixth. She could not cry out. She could scarcely breathe. Her resistance grew feebler, the roaring and the laughter louder. The fellows at the neighbouring table grew envious. A fat man with warts on his face called out: “Now you come to us!” His comrades brayed with laughter. When the last student let her go, it was this man who grasped her, kissed her and threw her toward his neighbour. More and more men arose, stretched out their arms, and demanded the defenceless victim. Nothing happened except that they kissed her. Yet there spread through the crowd a wildness of lust, so that even the women screeched and cried out. The students, in the meantime, proud of their little game, raised their rough voices and sang a foolish song.