Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/627

 with thoughts of love. I was torn to pieces in my very soul. So then let there come to us what is so innocent, especially for this short time left us …" The night of their parting was as long and passionate a vigil as might he expected. "We did not part, we slept in one bed.." Platen accompanied his friend as far as Bamberg; and there, with many kisses and embraces, they parted. Platen returned to Erlangen—"alas! I can no longer say "to our house." Within a few days, Platen went for his usual stay at Ansbach. He and the beloved Rotenhan seldom met after these Erlangen days. Their careers, and Platen's residence in Italy, kept them apart. Rotenhan died (high in juristic honours) at his family-castle in Bavaria, in 1858.

To this affair succeeded a considerable interval of strenuous study, especially as Platen now began Persian assiduously. Also came many "merely friendly" companionships and interests, with an ever increasing development of mind and talents, along with a routine and most wholesome college-life. Rotenhan abided much in Platen's mind; he yearned mightily for him; they wrote one another constantly. But in July, 1821, came a diversion; a quick, a passionate and (luckily) peculiarly happy new love-friendship that worked well toward 'Platen's whole social nature. This was with Otto von Bülow, an ancestor lineally of the distinguished German Chancellor of our own times. Otto von Bülow was an exceedingly handsome young collegian (also an ex-officer) who came for a short course at; Erlangen. Platen loved Bülow at sight, remarking in his Diary that "it was not possible to do anything else." "The first time I saw him," he writes on July 13, 1821, "his exterior made a decidedly favourable impression on me." Also Bülow was drawn to Platen almost at once. They became warmly-beloved friends; though never did two young natures differ more evidently. Otto von Bülow proved to be presently the direct