thoroughly proper and advantageous.  He received for the apothecary’s shop double the original purchase price, and saw himself thereby all at once put in a position to satisfy his creditors, who were at the same time his accusers.  And he did it, too.  He paid back the sum his father had advanced him, asked his wife, half jokingly, half scoffingly, whether perchance she wished to invest her money “more safely and more advantageously,” and thereby achieved what for seven years he had been longing for, namely, freedom and independence.  Relieved from all irksome tutelage, he found himself suddenly at the point where it was “no longer necessary to take orders from anybody.”  And with him that was a specially vital matter his whole life long.  From youth to old age he thirsted for that state; but as he did not know well how to attain it, he never enjoyed his longed-for liberty and independence for more than a few days or weeks at a time.  To use one of his favorite expressions, he was always in the “lurch,” was always financially embarrassed, and for that reason recalled to the end of his life with special pleasure the short period, now reached, between Easter, 1826, and Midsummer day, 1827.  With him this was the only time when the “lurch” was lacking....

During this time we lived near the Rheinsberg Gate, in a capacious rented apartment, which included all the rooms on the main floor.  So far as home comforts are concerned, my parents were both very well satisfied with the change; so were the other children, who found here ample room for their games; but I could not become reconciled to it, and have even to this day unpleasant memories of the rented residence.  There was a butcher’s shop in the building, and that did not suit my fancy.  Through the long dark court ran a gutter, with blood always standing in it, while at the end of one of the side wings a beef, killed the night before, hung on a broad ladder leaning against the house.  Fortunately I never had to witness the preceding scenes, except when pigs were slaughtered.  Then it was sometimes unavoidable.  One day is still fresh in my memory.  I was standing in the hall and gazing out through the open back door into the court, where it just happened that several persons were down on the ground struggling with a pig that was squealing its last.  I was paralyzed with horror.  As soon as I recovered control of myself I took to my heels, running down the street, through the town gate, and out to the “Vineyard,” a favorite resort of the Ruppiners.  But before I had finally reached that place I sat down on the top of a hummock to rest and catch my breath.  I stayed away the whole forenoon.  At dinner I was called upon to give an account of myself.  “For heaven’s sake, boy, where have you been so long?” I made a clean breast of the matter, saying that I had been put to flight by the spectacle down in the court and that half way to the “Vineyard” I had rested on a hummock and leaned my back against a crumbling pillar.  “Why, there you sat in perfect composure on Gallows Hill,” said my father, laughing.  Feeling as though the noose were being laid about my neck, I begged permission to leave the table.