He had returned this evening from a journey of service, during
which, in the preceding summer, chance had given to me the good
fortune to rescue him from a danger, into which youthful heat and
excess of spirit had thrown him. I had not seen him again since
this occurrence; earlier, I had made a passing acquaintance with
him, had drunk brotherhood with him at the university, and after
that had forgotten my dear brother.
He had now related this occurrence to his family,
with the easily kindled-up enthusiasm of youth, together with
what he knew of me beside, and what he did not know. The father,
who had a living in his gift, and who (as I afterwards found) had
made from his window some compassionate remarks upon my meagre
dinner-table, determined, assailed by the prayers of his son, to
raise me from the lap of poverty to the summit of good fortune.
August would in his rapture announce to me my good luck instantly,
and in order, at the same time, to gratify his passion for merry
jokes, made himself known upon my stairs in a way which occasioned
me a severe, although not dangerous, contusion on the temples, and
the unexpected removal across the street, out of the deepest
darkness into the brightest light. The good youth besought a
thousand times forgiveness for his thoughtlessness; a thousand
times I assured him that it was not worth the trouble to speak of
such a trifling blow. And, in fact, the living was a balsam which
would have made a greater wound than this imperceptible also.
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