his hands out wide and grasping at the air, he meant our Cabinet; that a hundred pirouettes on one toe without quitting the spot alluded to the German Diet; that he was thinking of the lesser princes when he tripped around with his legs tied; that he described the European balance of power when he tottered hither and thither like a drunken man; that he hinted at a Congress when he twisted his bended arms together like a skein; and finally, that he sets forth our altogether too great friend in the East, when, very gradually unfolding himself, he rises on high, stands for a long time in this elevated position, and then all at once breaks out into the most terrifying leaps.  The scales fell from the eyes of the young man, and he now saw how it was that dancers are better paid than great poets, and why the ballet forms in diplomatic circles an inexhaustible subject of conversation.  By Apis! how great is the number of the esoteric, and how small the array of the esoteric frequenters of the theatre!  There sit the stupid audience, gaping and admiring leaps and attitudes, studying anatomy in the positions of Lemiere, and applauding the entrechats of Roehnisch, prattling of “grace,” “harmony,” and “limbs”—­no one remarking meanwhile that he has before him in chronological ciphers the destiny of the German Fatherland.

* * * * *

The company around the table gradually became better acquainted and much noisier.  Wine banished beer, punch-bowls steamed, songs were sung, and brotherhood was drunk in true student fashion.  The old “Landsfather toast” and the beautiful songs of W. Mueller, Rueckert, Uhland, and others rang out with the exquisite airs of Methfessel.  Best of all sounded our own Arndt’s German words, “The Lord, who bade iron grow, wished for no slaves.”  And out of doors it roared as if the old mountain sang with us, and a few reeling friends even asserted that he merrily shook his bald head, which caused the great unsteadiness of the floor of our room.

* * * * *

During this crazy scene, in which plates learned to dance and glasses to fly, there sat opposite me two youths, beautiful and pale as statues, one resembling Adonis, the other Apollo.  The faint rosy hue which the wine spread over their cheeks was scarcely noticeable.  They gazed on each other with infinite affection, as if the one could read in the eyes of the other, and in those eyes there was a light as though drops of light had fallen therein from the cup of burning love, which an angel on high bears from one star to the other.  They conversed softly with earnest trembling voices, and narrated sad stories, through all of which ran a tone of strange sorrow.  “Lora is dead now too!” said one, and, sighing, proceeded to tell of a maiden of Halle who had loved a student, and who, when the latter left Halle, spoke no more to any one, ate but little, wept day and night, gazing over on the canary-bird which her lover had given