hoped for great things
from my studies. Besides, I thought that my father might be induced to
support me at the university another half-year.

My father would hear nothing of this so far as he was concerned; and my
trustee would not agree to the conditions offered by my father (to cover
an advance); so I had to pay the penalty of their obstinacy.

Towards the end of my third half-year the urgency of my difficulties
increased. I owed the keeper of an eating-house (for meals) thirty
thalers, if I am not mistaken. As this man had caused me to be summoned
for payment several times before the Senate of the University, and I had
never been able to pay, and as he had even addressed my father, only to
receive from him a sharp refusal to entertain the matter, I was
threatened with imprisonment in the case of longer default of payment.
And I actually had to submit to this punishment. My step-mother inflamed
the displeasure of my father, and rejoiced at his inflexibility. My
trustee, who still had the disposal of some property of mine, could have
helped me, but did not, because the letter of the law was against any
interference from his side. Each one hoped by the continuance of my
sorry plight to break the stubbornness of the other. I served as
scapegoat to the caprices of the obstinate couple, and languished as
such nine weeks long in the university prison at Jena.[23] At last my
father consented to advance me money on my formally abandoning, before
the university board, all claim on his property in the shape of
inheritance; and so, in the end, I got free.

In spite of the gloom into which my position as a prisoner plunged me,
the time of my arrest was not utterly barren. My late endeavours towards
scientific knowledge had made me more and more conscious of my need of a
solid foundation in my knowledge of Latin; therefore I now tried to
supply deficiencies to the extent of my ability, and with the help of a
friend. It was extremely hard to me, this working my way through the
dead and fragmentary teaching of an elementary grammar. It always seemed
to me as if the mere outer acquisition of a language could but little
help forward my true inner desire for knowledge, which was deeply in
earnest, and was the result of my own free choice. But wherever the
knowledge of language linked itself to definite external impressions,
and I was able to perceive its connection with facts, as, for instance,
in the scientific nomenclature of bota