A Tramp Abroad

Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII [How Bismark Fought]

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. 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. [1] 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.