THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
“I have some excellent stomach bitters; shall we drink one another's health in bitters?”
I was quite content. The bottle was taken from the cupboard, the black liquor poured out, we drank one another's health in stomach bitters, and the glasses rang. Another embrace, and we parted never to meet again.
But to return to my school days. The quiet life of the first years in Cologne was not without its excitements. Two occurrences of this time made a deep impression upon me. My daily walk to school led past the great Cathedral, which, now in its finished state the admiration of the world, looked in those days much like a magnificent ruin. Only the choir had been nearly finished. The great central part between the choir and the towers stood under a temporary roof and was built partly of brick. One of the two towers was not more than some sixty feet above the ground, while the other, surmounted by the famous century-old crane, had reached perhaps three or four times that height. The tooth of time had gnawed the medieval sculptures on the walls and arches and turrets, and the whole hoary pile, still unfinished, yet decaying, looked down, sad and worn, upon the living generation at its feet.
One morning when I was wending my accustomed way to school I saw fall from the top of the crane tower an object which looked like a cloak, and from which in its descent something detached itself and floated away in the breeze. The cloak shot straight down and struck with a heavy thud upon the stone pavement below. The passers-by ran to the spot; the cloak proved to contain a man, who, without doubt, had sought his death by jumping down. He had fallen upon his feet, and lay there in a little heap; the bones of the legs had been pressed into the body; the head, encircled by a fringe of gray hair, was much disfigured; the face, pale and distorted, was that of an
[ 61 ]
