This lady, a remarkable woman in every respect, who gave me many tokens of maternal affection, insisted on the right to warn me.  She did this by reminding me, with delicate feminine tact, of my mother when she heard of a wager which I now remember with grave disapproval.  This was to empty an immense number of bottles of the heavy Wurzburg Stein wine and yet remain perfectly sober.  My opponent, who belonged to the Brunswick Corps, lost, but as soon after I was attacked by illness, though not in consequence of this folly, which had occurred about a fortnight before, he could not give the breakfast which I had won.  But he fulfilled his obligation; for when, several lustra later, I visited his native city of Hamburg as a Leipsic professor, to deliver an address before the Society of Art and Science, he arranged a splendid banquet, at which I met several old Gottingen friends.

The term was nearly over when an entertainment was given to the corps by one of its aristocratic members.  It was a very gay affair.  A band of music played, and we students danced with one another.  I was one of the last to depart, long after midnight, and on looking for my overcoat I could not find it.  One of the guests had mistaken it for his, and the young gentleman’s servant had carried his own home.  This was unfortunate, for mine contained my door-key.

Heated by dancing, in a dress-coat, with a thin white necktie, I went out into the night air.  It was cold, and, violently as I pounded on the door of the Schonhutte, no one opened it.  At last I thought of pounding on the gutter-spout, which I did till I roused the landlord.  But I had been at least fifteen minutes in the street, and was fairly numbed.  The landlord was obliged to open the room and light my lamp, because I could not use my fingers.

If I had been intoxicated, which I do not believe, the cold would have sobered me, for what happened is as distinct as if it had occurred yesterday.

I undressed, went to bed, and when I was roused by a strange burning sensation in my throat I felt so weak that I could scarcely lift my arm.  There was a peculiar taste of blood in my mouth, and as I moved I touched something moist.  But my exhaustion was so great that I fell asleep again, and the dream which followed was so delightful that I did not forget it.  Perhaps the distinctness of my recollection is due to my making it the subject of a poem, which I still possess.  It seemed as if I were lying in an endless field of poppies, with the notes of music echoing around me.  Never did I have a more blissful vision.

The awakening was all the more terrible.  Only a few hours could have passed since I went to rest.  Dawn was just appearing, and I rang for the old maid-servant who waited on me.  An hour later Geheimrath Baum stood beside my bed.

The heavy tax made upon my physical powers by exposure to the night air had caused a severe haemorrhage.  The excellent physician who took charge of my case said positively that my lungs were sound, and the attack was due to the bursting of a blood-vessel.  I was to avoid sitting upright in bed, to receive no visitors, and have ice applied.  I believed myself destined to an early death, but the departure from life caused me no fear; nay, I felt so weary that I desired nothing but eternal sleep.  Only I wanted to see my mother again.