The remainder of our journey was very fatiguing, and the joy I felt when I at last beheld Prague from the summit of a hill, at about an hour’s distance, simply beggars description.  Approaching the suburbs, we were for the second time met by a splendid carriage, from which my sister Ottilie’s two lovely friends called out to me in astonishment.  They had recognised me immediately, in spite of my terribly sunburnt face, blue linen blouse, and bright red cotton cap.  Overwhelmed with shame, and with my heart beating like mad, I could hardly utter a word, and hurried away to my mother’s to attend at once to the restoration of my sunburnt complexion.  To this task I devoted two whole days, during which I swathed my face in parsley poultices; and not till then did I seek the pleasures of society.  When, on the return journey, I looked back once more on Prague from the same hilltop, I burst into tears, flung myself on the earth, and for a long time could not be induced by my astonished companion to pursue the journey.  I was downcast for the rest of the way, and we arrived home in Dresden without any further adventures.

During the same year I again gratified my fancy for long excursions on foot by joining a numerous company of grammar school boys, consisting of pupils of several classes and of various ages, who had decided to spend their summer holidays in a tour to Leipzig.  This journey also stands out among the memories 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!’