Oh! youthful, healthy host of
fighters! How healthy they were, all these young men, enervated by
idleness, unsatisfied desires and ambitions, who scorned every man who
had not the means to pay for a University education! What splendid
liars they were, the poets of the upper classes! Were they the
deceivers or the deceived?
What was the usual subject of the young men's conversation? Their
studies? Never! Once in a way, perhaps, they would talk of certificates.
No, their conversation was of things obscene; of appointments with
women; of billiards and drink; of certain diseases which they had heard
discussed by their elder brothers. They lounged about in the afternoon
and "held the reviews," and the best informed of them knew the name of
the officer and could tell the others where his mistress lived.
Once two members of the "Knights' Vigil of Light," had dined in the
company of two women on the terrace of a high-class restaurant in the
Zoological Gardens. For this offence they were expelled from school.
They were punished for their naivete, not because their conduct was
considered vicious, for a year after they passed their examinations
and went to the University, gaining in this way a whole year; and when
they had completed their studies at Upsala, they were attached to the
Embassy in one of the capitals of Europe, to represent the United
Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway.
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