Page:Prose Specimens for Translation into German (1862).djvu/237

 trian states. Scarcely arrived at Vienna, I went to the Apollo Hall, only just then become fashionable. But my wonder at the good carrying out of the strange idea, which was the foundation of this new institution, had not yet expressed itself in words , when a young man worked his way most incivilly through the numerous assembly and half out of breath addressed me thus :

“I beg your pardon, are you not Mr. Johnson?”

“At your service .”

“Did you not shoot, the baron Zitzerling in duel, at Weimar?”

“Your servant ?”

“The baron Zitzerling was my brother; I intend to avenge his death and request you to come tomorrow morning at four o’clock with pistols to the Prater.”

“Very well !” said I. I rode there next morning, found my opponent at the entrance and followed him to a somewhat secluded avenue. We took up the pistols and I shot him dead.

It was certainly very annoying to me to be obliged on account of this occurrence, so soon to leave beautiful Vienna. But my safety required it. In order however to avoid as much as possible similar interruptions, I this time proposed to myself at once a more distant journey; I sped through a part of Italy

6em