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In
addition to the corps laws, there are some corps usages which have the
force of laws.
Perhaps
the president of a corps notices that one of the membership who is no
longer an exempt — that is a freshman — has remained a sophomore
some little time without volunteering to fight; some day, the president,
instead of calling for volunteers, will APPOINT this sophomore to measure
swords with a student of another corps; he is free to decline —
everybody says so — there is no compulsion. This is all true —
but I have not heard of any student who DID decline; to decline and still
remain in the corps would make him unpleasantly conspicuous, and properly
so, since he knew, when he joined, that his main business, as a member,
would be to fight. No, there is no law against declining — except
the law of custom, which is confessedly stronger than written law, everywhere.
The ten men whose duels I had witnessed did not go away when their hurts
were dressed, as I had supposed they would, but came back, one after another,
as soon as they were free of the surgeon, and mingled with the assemblage
in the dueling-room. The white-cap student who won the second fight witnessed
the remaining three, and talked with us during the intermissions. He could
not talk very well, because his opponent's sword had cut his under-lip
in two, and then the surgeon had sewed it together and overlaid it with
a profusion of white plaster patches; neither could he eat easily, still
he contrived to accomplish a slow and troublesome luncheon while the last
duel was preparing. The man who was the worst hurt of all played chess
while waiting to see this engagement. A good part of his face was covered
with patches and bandages, and all the rest of his head was covered and
concealed by them. |
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It
is said that the student likes to appear on the street and in other public
places in this kind of array, and that this predilection
often keeps him out when exposure to rain or sun is a positive danger
for him. Newly bandaged students are a very common spectacle in the public
gardens of Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad to get
wounds in the face, because the scars they leave will show so well there;
and it is also said that these face wounds are so prized that youths have
even been known to pull them apart from time to time and put red wine
in them to make them heal badly and leave as ugly a scar as possible.
It does not look reasonable, but it is roundly asserted and maintained,
nevertheless; I am sure of one thing — scars are plenty enough in
Germany, among the young men; and very grim ones they are, too. They crisscross
the face in angry red welts, and are permanent and ineffaceable.
Some
of these scars are of a very strange and dreadful aspect; and the effect
is striking when several such accent the milder ones, which form a city
map on a man's face; they suggest the "burned district" then.
We had often noticed that many of the students wore a colored silk band
or ribbon diagonally across their breasts. It transpired that this signifies
that the wearer has fought three duels in which a decision was reached
— duels in which he either whipped or was whipped — for drawn
battles do not count.
After a student has received his ribbon, he is "free"; he can
cease from fighting, without reproach — except some one insult him;
his president cannot appoint him to fight; he can volunteer if he wants
to, or remain quiescent if he prefers to do so. Statistics show that he
does NOT prefer to remain quiescent. They show that the duel has a singular
fascination about it somewhere, for these free men, so far from resting
upon the privilege of the badge, are always volunteering. A corps student
told me it was of record that Prince Bismarck fought thirty-two of these
duels in a single summer term when he was in college. So he fought twenty-nine
after his badge had given him the right to retire from the field.
The
statistics may be found to possess interest in several particulars. Two
days in every week are devoted to dueling. The rule is rigid that there
must be three duels on each of these days; there are generally more, but
there cannot be fewer. There were six the day I was present; sometimes
there are seven or eight. It is insisted that eight duels a week —
four for each of the two days — is too low an average to draw a
calculation from, but I will reckon from that basis, preferring an understatement
to an overstatement of the case. This requires about four hundred and
eighty or five hundred duelists a year — for in summer the college
term is about three and a half months, and in winter it is four months
and sometimes longer. Of the seven hundred and fifty students in the university
at the time I am writing of, only eighty belonged to the five corps, and
it is only these corps that do the dueling; occasionally other students
borrow the arms and battleground of the five corps in order to settle
a quarrel, but this does not happen every dueling-day.
Consequently eighty youths furnish the material for some two hundred and
fifty duels a year. This average gives six fights a year to each of the
eighty. This large work could not be accomplished if the badge-holders
stood upon their privilege and ceased to volunteer.
Of
course, where there is so much fighting, the students make it a point
to keep themselves in constant practice with the foil. One often sees
them, at the tables in the Castle grounds, using their whips or canes
to illustrate some new sword trick which they have heard about; and between
the duels, on the day whose history I have been writing, the swords were
not always idle; every now and then we heard a succession of the keen
hissing sounds which the sword makes when it is being put through its
paces in the air, and this informed us that a student was practicing.
Necessarily, this unceasing attention to the art develops an expert occasionally.
He becomes famous in his own university, his renown spreads to other universities.
He is invited to Goettingen, to fight with a Goettingen expert; if he
is victorious, he will be invited to other colleges, or those colleges
will send their experts to him. Americans and Englishmen often join one
or another of the five corps. A year or two ago, the principal Heidelberg
expert was a big Kentuckian; he was invited to the various universities
and left a wake of victory behind him all about Germany; but at last a
little student in Strasburg defeated him. There was formerly a student
in Heidelberg who had picked up somewhere and mastered a peculiar trick
of cutting up under instead of cleaving down from above. While the trick
lasted he won in sixteen successive duels in his university; but by that
time observers had discovered what his charm was, and how to break it,
therefore his championship ceased. |
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this
kind of array
Illustration:
FAVORITE STREET COSTUME. ineffaceable
Illustration:
INEFFACEABLE SCARS |
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A
rule which forbids social intercourse between members of different corps
is strict. In the dueling-house, in the parks, on the street, and anywhere
and everywhere that the students go, caps of a color group themselves
together. If all the tables in a public garden were crowded but one, and
that one had two red-cap students at it and ten vacant places, the yellow-caps,
the blue-caps, the white caps, and the green caps, seeking seats, would
go by that table and not seem to see it, nor seem to be aware that there
was such a table in the grounds. The student by whose courtesy we had
been enabled to visit the dueling-place, wore the white cap — Prussian
Corps. He introduced us to many white caps, but to none of another color.
The corps etiquette extended even to us, who were strangers, and required
us to group with the white corps only, and speak only with the white corps,
while we were their guests, and keep aloof from the caps of the other
colors. Once I wished to examine some of the swords, but an American student
said, "It would not be quite polite; these now in the windows all
have red hilts or blue; they will bring in some with white hilts presently,
and those you can handle freely. "When a sword was broken in the
first duel, I wanted a piece of it; but its hilt was
the wrong color, so it was considered best and politest to await a properer
season.
It was brought to me after the room was cleared, and I will now make a
"life-size" sketch of it by tracing a line around it with my
pen, to show the width of the weapon. The length of these swords is about
three feet, and they are quite heavy. One's disposition to cheer, during
the course of the duels or at their close, was naturally strong, but corps
etiquette forbade any demonstrations of this sort. However brilliant a
contest or a victory might be, no sign or sound betrayed that any one
was moved. A dignified gravity and repression were maintained at all times.
When
the dueling was finished and we were ready to go, the gentlemen of the
Prussian Corps to whom we had been introduced took off their caps in the
courteous German way, and also shook hands; their brethren of the same
order took off their caps and bowed, but without shaking hands; the gentlemen
of the other corps treated us just as they would have treated white caps
— they fell apart, apparently unconsciously, and left us an unobstructed
pathway, but did not seem to see us or know we were there. If we had gone
thither the following week as guests of another corps, the white caps,
without meaning any offense, would have observed the etiquette of their
order and ignored our presence.
[...]
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a
piece
Illustration:
PIECE OF SWORD. |
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FROM MY DIARY.
— Dined in a hotel a few miles up the Neckar, in a room whose walls
were hung all over with framed portrait-groups of the Five Corps; some
were recent, but many antedated photography, and were pictured in lithography
— the dates ranged back to forty or fifty years ago. Nearly every
individual wore the ribbon across his breast. In one portrait-group representing
(as each of these pictures did) an entire Corps, I took pains to count
the ribbons: there were twenty-seven members, and twenty-one of them wore
that significant badge.
They have to borrow the arms because they could not get them elsewhere
or otherwise. As I understand it, the public authorities, all over Germany,
allow the five Corps to keep swords, but do not allow them to use
them. This is law is rigid; it is only the execution of it that is
lax |
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