Across one end and down both sides of the room extended a row of tables, and at these tables some fifty or seventy-five students [1.

See Appendix C] were sitting.
Some of them were sipping wine, others were playing cards, others chess, other groups were chatting together, and many were smoking cigarettes while they waited for the coming duels.

Nearly all of them wore colored caps; there were white caps, green caps, blue caps, red caps, and bright-yellow ones; so, all the five corps were present in strong force.

In the windows at the vacant end of the room stood six or eight, narrow-bladed swords with large protecting guards for the hand, and outside was a man at work sharpening others on a grindstone.
He understood his business; for when a sword left his hand one could shave himself with it.
It was observable that the young gentlemen neither bowed to nor spoke with students whose caps differed in color from their own.

This did not mean hostility, but only an armed neutrality.