  kreutzberg.—a prussian supper and carouse. Herr Kupferkram the elder, I have done thee wrong. I have set thee down as a mere vender of sausages, and lo! thou holdest tavern and eating-house; dispensing prandial portions of savoury delicacies in flesh and vegetable, at the charge of six silver groschens the meal. I beg a thousand pardons; and as a sincere mark of contrition, will consent to swallow thy dinners for a while. “Will the Herrn Tourniquet and Tuci,” said the Frau Kupferkram one morning, with a duck and a smirk, “do us the honour of supping with us this evening? There will be a few friends, for this is the ‘nahmenstag’ of our dear Gottlob, now in England.” “Liebe Frau Kupferkram, we shall be delighted!” I ought, perhaps, to observe, that in Prussia, although a Protestant country, the Catholic custom of commemorating the “saint” rather than the “birth-day,” is almost universal. The former is called the “nahmenstag,” or name-day. But the day is yet “so young,” that nothing short of the most inveterate gluttony could bend the mind at present upon the evening’s festivity; and moreover, the Berlin races have called us from the workshop and the cares of labour, and our very souls are in the stirrups, eagerly panting for the sport. My dear reader, how can I describe what I never saw? Did we not expend two silver groschens in a programme of the races, and gloat over the spirited A fig for the races! we will go and see the Kreutzberg instead. Our way lies through the Halle gate—Halle, a town that belonged to the Saxons before the French invasion, but lost through their adherence to Napoleon, is now the seat of a Prussian university—and by the Place of the Belle Alliance. What “alliance?” The alliance of sovereigns against destruction, or of people against tyranny? One and both; but while the union of the former has triumphed over the common leveller, the latter, by whose aid it was effected, still drag their unrelenting chains. The Kreutzberg is consecrated to the same magniloquent union, and bears upon its head a military monument illustrative of the triumph of a roused and indignant people against a great oppression; but alas! it does not record the emancipation of that same people from intestine slavery. But that is their business and not ours. The Kreutzberg stands about a mile and a half from the city gates, and rears its grey height like a mountain amid the general level, commanding a prospect of thirty miles around. Berlin, half garden, half palace, lies at your feet, rising majestically from the sandy plain, and irregularly divided by the winding Spree. The surrounding country, by its luxuriance, gives evidence of the energy of an industrious race struggling against a naturally barren soil. Turning our eyes upwards upon the military monument which graces the summit of the hill, we cannot repress our gratification at its beauty. A terrace eighty feet in diameter rises from the bare ground, and in its centre, upon a substructure of stone, towers an iron temple or shrine in the turreted Gothic style, divided into twelve chapels or niches. In each recess stands a figure, life size, “The Sovereign to his People, who at his summons magnanimously poured forth their Blood and Treasure for the Country. In Memory of the Fallen, in Gratitude to the Living, as an Incitement to every future Generation.” One is tempted to add, “and of sacred promises still unfulfilled.” There is a beautiful garden and saloon called the Tivoli, close at hand, and from our heroics we soon slide into the peaceful enjoyment of a “baisser” and a cup of coffee; lounging luxuriantly among the flowers till the hour approaches for our departure. We are a snug little party of a dozen, not including Herr Kupferkram and the Frau, who will insist upon waiting on us. There is the smug master-butcher from round the corner, who has a very becoming sense of his own position in society; two mild-spoken bookseller’s clerks, who scarcely find their voices till the evening is far advanced; my friend and fellow-tramp the glovemaker; a spruce little model of a man, with the crispest hair, and the fullest and best trimmed moustache in the world, and who is no doubt a great man somewhere; a tremendous fellow of a student, who talks of cannon-boots, rapiers, and Berliner Weiss Bier; and an individual whose only distinguishing feature is his nose, and that is an insult to polite society. The rest have no characteristics at all. But ah! shall I forget thee, the beautiful Louise!—the affianced of Gottlob, the blonde, the coquettish, and the gay! Have you not asked me, in half confidence (Alcibiade being present), whether the German “geliebte,” is not changed in English into “sÜsses herz,” “sweet-heart,” as Gottlob had told you in his last letter from London? And you think the sentiment “so pretty and poetical!” And so it is; but we dunderheads in England have used the word so often that we have half forgotten its meaning. Down we sit to supper; commencing with a delicate gravy soup and liver fritters; following up with breaded pork-chops and red saurkraut; continuing upon baked veal and prunes; not forgetting the entremets of green pease and finely-sliced carrots stewed in “Sing, fair Louise, I prithee sing!” Louise is troubled with a cold, of course; and, after due persuasion, lisps and murmurs some incoherent tremblings; exceedingly pretty, no doubt, if we could only make out what they meant. Then the student, who, although diminutive, has the voice of a giant, shouts a university song with the Latin chorus:— “Edite, bebite, collegiales, “Eat ye then, drink ye then, social companions, The mildest of the clerks comes out well with Kotzebue’s philosophical song:— “Es kann ja nicht immer so bleiben, “It cannot remain thus for ever, The spruce gentleman with the crisp hair throws back his head, and with closed eyes warbles melodiously:—
“My friends!” shouts the student, mounting on a chair, “listen to me for a moment.” And then he plunges into an eloquent discourse upon the beauties of fraternity, and the union of nations, concluding his harangue by proposing a “Lebe hoch” to Alcibiade and myself. Alcibiade is decidedly the lion of the evening, and bears his honours gracefully, like a well-tamed creature. “Se sollen leben! Vivat ho—o!” it roars in our ears, and amid its echoes we duly acknowledge the compliment. “That’s beautiful!” exclaims the student, whose name, by the bye, is Pimblebeck. “And now grant me one other favour. Thou Briton, and thou son of France, let us drink brotherhood together. What say ye? Let it be no longer ‘you’ and ‘yours’ between us, but ‘thou’ and ‘thine.’” Having reached the affectionate stage of exhilaration, we enter at once into the spirit of the proposal, and each in his turn, glass in hand, locking his arm in that of the enthusiastic Pimblebeck, drinks eternal friendship: to love truly; to defend valiantly; and to address each other by no other title than that of “thou” and “thee” for the rest of our lives. I confess to a certain obliviousness here; a mental haze, amid which the mingled airs of “Rule Britannia” and the “Marsellaise” float indistinctly. But above all, and through all, with terrible distinctness, tones the voice of Pimblebeck; his boyish form dilated into the dimensions of a Goliath, as he pours forth the words of a Prussian revolutionary song, some few of which stand out in letters of fire in my memory still, thus:— “Prinzen vom Land hinaus, “Drive out the prince and priest, |
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