As I stood thus, lost in devotion, I heard some one near me exclaim, “Ah, how beautiful Nature is, as a general thing!” These words came from the sentimental heart of my room-mate, the young merchant.  They brought me back to my week-day frame of mind, and I was now able to say a few neat things to the ladies about the sunset and to accompany them, as calmly as if nothing had happened, to their room.  They permitted me to talk an hour longer with them.  Our conversation, like the earth’s course, was about the sun.  The mother declared that the sun, as it sank in the snowy clouds, seemed like a red glowing rose, which the gallant heaven had thrown upon the white outspreading bridal-veil of his loved earth.  The daughter smiled, and thought that a frequent observation of such phenomena weakened their impression.  The mother corrected this error by a quotation from Goethe’s Letters of Travel, and asked me if I had read Werther.  I believe that we also spoke of Angora cats, Etruscan vases, Turkish shawls, maccaroni, and Lord Byron, from whose poems the elder lady, daintly lisping and sighing, recited several passages about the sunset.  To the younger lady, who did not understand English, and who wished to become familiar with those poems, I recommended the translation of my fair and gifted countrywoman, the Baroness Elise von Hohenhausen.  On this occasion, as is my custom when talking with young ladies, I did not fail to declaim against Byron’s godlessness, heartlessness, cheerlessness, and heaven knows what besides.

After this business I took a walk on the Brocken, for there it is never quite dark.  The mist was not heavy, and I could see the outlines of the two hills known as the Witch’s Altar and the Devil’s Pulpit.  I fired my pistol, but there was no echo.  Suddenly, however, I heard familiar voices and found myself embraced and kissed.  The newcomers were fellow-students from my own part of Germany, and had left Goettingen four days later than I. Great was their astonishment at finding me again, alone on the Blocksberg.  Then came a flood tide of narrative, of astonishment, and of appointment-making, of laughing, and of recollecting, and in the spirit we found ourselves again in our learned Siberia, where refinement is carried to such an extent that the bears are tied up in the taverns, and the sables wish the hunter good evening.[54]

In the great room we had supper.  There was a long table, with two rows of hungry students.  At first we indulged in the usual topic of university conversation—­duels, duels, and once again duels.  The company consisted principally of Halle students, and Halle formed, in consequence, the nucleus of their discourse.  The window-panes of Court-Councilor Schuetz were exegetically illuminated.  Then it was mentioned that the King of Cyprus’ last levee had been very brilliant; that the monarch had chosen a natural son; that he had married with the left hand a princess of the house of Lichtenstein;