Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/101

 dear comrades. As they were not to prepare themselves for any learned profession, but were to be farmers, like their father, I had not so many interests in common with them as with my other friends; but they were boys of mental activity, excellent disposition and chivalrous spirits, and we amused ourselves together to our hearts' content. When the weather was bad we now and then resorted to a game of cards. And here, in order to be entirely faithful to truth, I must mention an occurrence which will prove that my youth was by no means free from serious blemish.

At first we played cards merely for the sake of passing time. Then as the taste for it grew, we staked small sums of money to increase the interest and excitement, which it did most effectually. The stakes were very small indeed, but the changing fortune in winning and losing stimulated the gambling passion until finally a catastrophe occurred. One particular afternoon I happened to have the money in my pocket with which to pay my tuition fees, which were due in a few days. I lost steadily in the game and was so carried away that at last I took out of my pocket the money entrusted to me by my parents. Of course, with it I expected to win back all that I had lost. We played on feverishly, but luck would not turn, and at last the entire sum of the tuition fee was swept away. It amounted only to a very few thalers, and my cousins helped me out of my immediate embarrassment; but my horror at what had happened was so great, my consciousness of guilt so painful, and the sense of mortification so acute—for I considered myself, and with reason, to be a criminal—that the inward suffering of those days, especially when I made a confession to my parents, has ever remained in my memory as a terrible lesson. I had gone through a very serious experience with myself. In playing for stakes the desire to win money