The Master's Apprentice: A Retelling of the Faust Legend by Oliver Pötzsch

Author:Oliver Pötzsch [Pötzsch, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542009980
Google: PDzcyAEACAAJ
Amazon: 1542009987
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2020-04-27T23:00:00+00:00

The first few days in Heidelberg were like an additional course of study for Johann.

He could hardly believe his luck—the famous Heidelberg University had accepted him! But this stroke of luck meant a lot of hard work. Everything was new to him, and he had to learn countless small things that were a given for all the other students. At least that way he didn’t get a chance to brood over the events in Venice.

The university’s campus was a maze of new buildings, former monastery buildings, churches, and squares where lectures and seminars were held according to a fixed schedule. Johann heard that the Jewish ghetto used to be situated on the university grounds, but following the expulsion of the Jews from Heidelberg more than a hundred years ago, the count palatine had all the old houses torn down and built new ones in their place. The synagogue had been turned into the university chapel, which doubled as a lecture hall.

Johann estimated there were more than a hundred students in gowns and berets strutting from lecture to lecture through the narrow lanes of the university quarter. They acted like young doctors, proudly carrying bundles of books that they’d borrowed at one of the three university libraries. Students were permitted to copy from some of the books, while others—the most precious ones—were chained to desks. Borrowing books was a bureaucratic process so difficult that Johann thought it should require its own examination.

All lectures were held in Latin, and the students mostly spoke Latin among each other, too. They wanted to distance themselves from the citizens of Heidelberg, who often considered the rebellious young lads a thorn in their side. The students would roam the streets at night, singing loudly and acting raucously, brawling or frequenting the whorehouse at Grosse Mantelgasse Lane to let off steam. Like at all universities of the empire, women weren’t permitted.

Most students lived at hostels, where further classes and exercises were held under the supervision of an older magister. The hostels were noisy until late at night, in spite of the strict rules. Johann, however, was staying at the paupers’ hostel, a plain building that housed six poor but gifted students and six equally poor magisters. It was considered particularly strict and was headed by Magister Partschneider, whom Johann had met during his first examination. The suspicious old man had made it clear from the first day that he was keeping an eye on Johann.

“And I still say,” he grumbled, “there’s something about you I don’t like. Sooner or later I’ll find out what it is.” When Johann walked past him into his sparsely furnished chamber, he could feel Partschneider’s eyes. It felt as though the man could see right through him—see who he really was.

Nothing but a juggler and a fraud.

In the first week, Johann had found a friend among the other five poor students, and now they shared a room at the hostel. The student’s name was Valentin Brander, and he was a delicate boy with drooping shoulders who always looked as if he was afraid of getting a beating.

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