The arm passed from one to the other amid general admiration.  Every word that was said increased my disgust for myself and for what I had done.  It was a woman’s arm, then—­what sort of a woman might she have been?  Young and beautiful possibly—­her brothers’ pride, her parents’ joy.  She had faded away in her youth, cared for by loving hands and tender thoughts.  She had fallen asleep gently, and those who loved her had desired to give her in death the peace she had enjoyed throughout her lifetime.  For this they had made her coffin of thick, heavy oaken boards.  And this hand, loved and missed by so many—­it lay there now on an anatomical table, encircled by clouds of tobacco smoke, stared at by curious glances, and made the object of coarse jokes.  O God! how terrible it was!

“I must have that arm,” exclaimed Soelling, when the first burst of admiration had passed.  “When I bleach it and touch it up with varnish, it will be a superb specimen.  I’ll take it home with me.”

“No,” I exclaimed, “I can’t permit it.  It was wrong of me to bring it away from the churchyard.  I’m going right back to put the arm in its place.”

“Well, will you listen to that?” cried Soelling, amid the hearty laughter of the others.  “Simsen’s so lyric, he certainly must be drunk.  I must have that arm at any cost.”

“Not much,” cut in Niels Daae; “you have no right to it.  It was buried in the earth and dug out again; it is a find, and all the rest of us have just as much right to it as you have.”

“Yes, every one of us has some share in it,” said some one else.

“But what are you going to do about it?” remarked Soelling.  “It would be vandalism to break up that arm.  What God has joined together let no man put asunder,” he concluded with pathos.

“Let’s auction it off,” exclaimed Daae.  “I will be the auctioneer, and this key to the graveyard will serve me for a hammer.”

The laughter broke out anew as Daae took his place solemnly at the head of the table and began to whine out the following announcement:  “I hereby notify all present that on the 25th of November, at twelve o’clock at midnight, in corridor No. 5 of the student barracks, a lady’s arm in excellent condition, with all its appurtenances of wrist bones, joints, and finger tips, is to be offered at public auction.  The buyer can have possession of his purchase immediately after the auction, and a credit of six weeks will be given to any reliable customer.  I bid a Danish shilling.”

“One mark,” cried Soelling mockingly.

“Two,” cried somebody else.

“Four,” exclaimed Soelling.  “It’s worth it.  Why don’t you join in, Simsen?  You look as if you were sitting in a hornet’s nest.”

I bid one mark more, and Soelling raised me a thaler.  There were no more bids, the hammer fell, and the arm belonged to Soelling.

“Here, take this,” he said, handing me a mark piece; “it’s part of your commission as grave robber.  You shall have the rest later, unless you prefer that I should turn it over to the drinking fund.”  With these words Soelling wrapped the arm in a newspaper, and the gay crowd ran noisily down the stairs and through the streets, until their singing and laughter were lost in the distance.