Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/289

 Schanzengraben. My chum had the typical face of an old forester, weather-beaten, illumined by keen eyes, furrowed with a network of deep wrinkles, and ornamented with a gigantic gray mustache. He was an old bachelor, an amiable, benevolent soul, and we lived together in cheerful peace and friendship. He told me often that his forest-house had been situated in the neighborhood of a place called Tronegg, which had been in the immemorial past the seat of the gloomy hero of the Nibelungen Lied, Hagen von Tronje.

Thus I lived in agreeable domestic conditions and continued diligently my military and historical studies. Although I avoided the tavern as much as possible, I did not keep entirely aloof from intercourse with a larger circle of refugees. We had a political club that met once a week, and in the transactions of which I took an interested part. This club was in correspondence with democratic friends in the Fatherland, informed itself about the state of the public mind and about everything that could be considered symptomatic of the coming new revolution, and endeavored to put in its own work here and there—an activity of which I learned only some time later how utterly illusory it was. From time to time it occurred to me that the revolution might delay its coming much longer than we believed, and I began to make plans for my own future. There was a rumor that the federal government of Switzerland intended to found a great university at Zürich. I thought if the new German revolution kept us waiting all too long, I might establish myself at the university as a “Privat-Docent” of history, and then win for myself by-and-by a regular professorship. For the time being I gladly accepted the proposition of my friend, Dr. Hermann Becker, dubbed the “red Becker” at the university, to write articles for the newspaper edited by him in Cologne, the remuneration for which was sufficient to