“Humoristisch Album.”
A STUDENT’S LODGINGS SIXTY YEARS SINCE.
The burghers of the university town—at least those whose houses, at the beginning of the summer vacation, are adorned with cards bearing the inscription “Cubicula locanda”—can, during nine months of the year, be looked on only to a limited extent as masters in their own dwellings. It is the student, or the officer, as the case may be, who is established in the best room, who attracts all the attention of passers by, and the neighbours over the way,—who sits at the window, is seen to go in and out at the front door, carries the key, rules, gives orders, receives his friends and acquaintances, and, in a word, conducts himself as the principal person, while the owner or lessee of the house is banished to a back room or some little subterraneous den in the basement. It is to the best room, then, that we must make our way, though the approach to it is not an attractive one. Our way lies, first, through a narrow passage, where we run the risk of stumbling over a doorstep, evidently placed there with the sole object of teaching children and visitors to be careful of their steps. Then we have to seek a dark and narrow stairway, and, having found it, to ascend it. It receives, by day, only a dim and doubtful light from the basement; by night, it is perfectly dark, and its worn and slippery steps follow one another at such strangely unequal intervals, that one is tempted to think the architect must have been interested in the problem how to pile on one another, in a given space, a given number of irregular parallelograms in the most heterogeneous manner possible. When we have succeeded, after having knocked our heads not more than three or four times against all sorts of fantastically projecting rafters and angles, in reaching what is ironically called the bel étage, we find ourselves in front of a door which opens very easily and noiselessly, but can never be closed without five or six violent thrusts or tugs, according as you are inside or out. We once more hit our toes against an unexpected doorstep, and at last enter the first of the two rooms inhabited by Gerlof Bol, S.S. Theol. cand.
It is evening; the two sash windows, divided by a narrow space of wall, are hidden behind unpainted shutters, on which, here and there, a square, worm-eaten, or dirt-stained spot shows where a hasp or bolt has been, but is no more. These shutters curve outwards, and threaten every moment to escape from the control of the bars (bent crooked as though with their weight), and fling themselves in the face of the incautious person who should venture too near. The walls are covered with a dirty yellow paper, on which green and blue flowers alternate in diagonal lines. Now and then, where the paper has been torn, another piece of the same pattern has been pasted on upside down, probably for the sake of securing a pleasing variety; while in other cases the damage has not been repaired, and an earlier wall decoration, in orange and black, is apparent in patches. On the wall hang the portraits of Van Der Palm and Borgen[[20]] in one frame, the lecture list, fastened up with three pins, and a variety of college notices secured in the same way. Near the door is a tolerably roomy alcove, containing the occupant’s chief treasures,—in the first place, his books, which, in so far as they consist of quartos, octavos, and duodecimos, are ranged on three shelves against the wall, while the folios stand on the ground in the company of sundry maps in cases; in the second place, two baskets, one of which is full of burnt-out clay pipes, the other of foul ditto awaiting their burning. Item, a closed card-table, bought cheap at a second-hand dealer’s, which can never stand on more than two legs at the same time; while the superficies of the once green baize with which it is covered offers a remarkable assemblage of mathematical figures, such as circles formed by the setting down of wet punch or wine glasses, ellipses or squares arising from the dropping of wax, grease, or ink, or the contact with various objects not previously dusted. Item, an umbrella without a knob, whose whalebone ribs, for the most part, have either repudiated all connection with the covering, or shamelessly protrude through it. Furthermore, a trio of eccentric-looking canes, a couple of broken German pipes, a little tin box, a small writing-desk heaped with dictata, MS. notes, and dilapidated books; a large reading desk, holding the editio princeps of the States Bible;[[21]] and, last not least, as the English say, a small basket containing full, and a large one with empty, wine bottles.
The said alcove is provided with a double door, and when the latter is closed, peculiar skill, or else a lucky conjuncture of circumstances, is necessary to open it, seeing that the handle usually displays a remarkable degree of obstinacy, and calmly turns round in one’s hand unnumbered times without lifting the latch.
As to the other furniture of the room, the following is an accurate inventory:—
1. A small mirror in a polished wooden frame,—the glass consisting of two sections, each of a different colour. If you see yourself in the lower half you have a purple countenance, in the upper a green one, and in either case your features are cruelly distorted; in fact, no one ever looked into this mirror, either above or below, who did not instantly look out of it again,—so frightfully ugly does every one find him or herself, as the case may be.
2. A mahogany sécretaire, which, though it has lost some of the convolutions of the carved fretwork finishing it off at the top, is still, on the whole, tolerably fit for use, and has no other defects than these, that the lower drawer will not shut, that one of the hinges of the flap is loose,—necessitating great care in opening and closing,—and that one of the feet has long ago declined further service and preferred a horizontal to an upright position,—in spite of which, however, the article of furniture can be made to stand tolerably steady if propped up against the wall. On the top stands a bunch of paper flowers (the landlady’s property), protected by a glass shade, flanked to right and left by plaster busts of Homer and Cicero, and surrounded with several teacups, bearing in gilt letters such touching mottoes as “Many happy returns of the day,” “A trifle—but a token of good-will,” “Walk on roses,” “A token of respect,” &c. &c.
3. A white-wood corner cupboard, with a fluted sliding-door, which, if you go about to open it quietly, refuses to move, whereas if you use force you push the whole cupboard from its place. Only long experience, added to unwearying patience, will enable any one to bring to light the glasses, plates, and knives, or whatever the contents of the receptacle may be.
4. A tiled stove, whose top is pointed out as a frequent resting-place for glasses by a variety of circular stains. Next the stove stands a wooden tub containing coals, and behind it lie a heap of peats and a few blocks of wood, also a poker and tongs. The latter cannot be handled without pinching the skin of one’s forefinger, and the legs slip across each other as soon as one tries to pick up anything with them.