of my youth, by reason of the strong impressions it left behind.
The characteristic feature of our party was that we all aped the
student, by behaving and dressing extravagantly in the most
approved student fashion. After going as far as Meissen on the
market-boat, our path lay off the main road, through villages
with which I was as yet unfamiliar. We spent the night in the
vast barn of a village inn, and our adventures were of the
wildest description. There we saw a large marionette show, with
almost life-sized figures. Our entire party settled themselves in
the auditorium, where their presence was a source of some anxiety
to the managers, who had only reckoned on an audience of
peasants. Genovefa was the play given. The ceaseless silly jests,
and constant interpolations and jeering interruptions, in which
our corps of embryo-students indulged, finally aroused the anger
even of the peasants, who had come prepared to weep. I believe I
was the only one of our party who was pained by these
impertinences, and in spite of involuntary laughter at some of my
comrades' jokes, I not only defended the play itself, but also
its original, simple-minded audience. A popular catch-phrase
which occurred in the piece has ever since remained stamped on my
memory. 'Golo' instructs the inevitable Kaspar that, when the
Count Palatine returns home, he must 'tickle him behind, so that
he should feel it in front' (hinten zu kitzeln, dass er es vorne
fuhle). Kaspar conveys Golo's order verbatim to the Count, and
the latter reproaches the unmasked rogue in the following terms,
uttered with the greatest pathos: 'O Golo, Golo! thou hast told
Kaspar to tickle me behind, so that I shall feel it in front!'

From Grimma our party rode into Leipzig in open carriages, but
not until we had first carefully removed all the outward emblems