THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
the elasticity of youthful spirits to console us with the hope that finally all would be well.
While we were still planning various excursions from Eisenach into the surrounding country, our Viennese friends informed us that they had received letters from the “Aula” about the threatening situation of things, which obliged them to return to Vienna without delay. They parted from us with a real “morituri salutamus.” “In a few days,” they said, “we shall have to fight a battle in Vienna, and then you may look for our names on the list of the dead.” I still see one of them before me—he was a young man of rare beauty, by the name of Valentin—who spoke those words. Thus our admired Viennese legionaries took leave of us, and we trembled in appreciating how terribly and how quickly their prediction might come true.
The rest of us also were now obliged to think of journeying home. The only practical object of the student-congress was accomplished. The general organization of the German university men had been resolved upon and the executive authority designated. Subjects for further discussions there were none. The funds of many of us too were beginning to run low. But with every hour our parting appeared harder to bear. We had come to love one another so much and our companionship was so enjoyable that we strained our inventive genius to the utmost to save at least a few days. At last we took an inventory of the money that was still in our pockets in order to form a common purse, out of which, after the means necessary for our respective homeward journey had been reserved, the cost of further convivial pleasures was to be defrayed. In this way we really gained a few days which we enjoyed to our heart's content and at once some festivities were planned, one of which came very near having a bad end.
[ 148 ]
