During the time that we occupied the rented apartment I became seven years of age, just old enough to retain all sorts of things; and yet I remember exceedingly little from that period, in fact but two events.  These I probably recall because a vivid color impression helped me to retain them.  One of the events was a great fire, in which the barns outside the Eheinsberg Gate burned down.  However, I must state in advance that it was not the burning of the barns that impressed itself upon my memory, but a scene that took place immediately before my eyes, one only incidentally occasioned by the fire, which I did not see at all.  On that day my parents were at a small dinner party, clear at the other end of the city.  When the company was suddenly apprised of the news that all the barns were on fire, my mother, who was a very nervous person, immediately felt certain that her children could not escape death in the flames, or were at least in grave danger of losing their lives.  Being completely carried away by this idea she rushed from the table, down the long Frederick William street, and without hat or cloak, and with her hair half tumbled down in her mad chase, burst into our large front room and found us, snatched out of bed and wrapped in blankets, sitting around on cushions and footstools.  On catching sight of us she screamed aloud for joy and then fell in a swoon.  When, the next moment, various people, the landlord’s family among others, came in with candles in their hands, the whole picture which the room presented received a dazzling light, especially the dark red brocade dress of my mother and the black hair that fell down over it, and this red and black with the flickering candles round about—­all this I have retained to the present hour.

The other picture, or let me say, rather, the second little occurrence that still lives in my memory, was entirely devoid of dramatic elements, but color again came to my assistance.  This time it was yellow, instead of red.  During the interim year my father made frequent journeys to Berlin.  Once, say, in the month of November, the sunset colors were already gleaming through the trees on the city ramparts, as I stood down in our doorway watching my father as he put on his driving gloves with a certain aplomb and then suddenly sprang upon the front seat of his small calash.  My mother was there also.  “Really the boy might go along,” said my father.  I pricked up my ears, rejoiced in my little soul, which even then longed eagerly for anything a little out of the ordinary and likely to give me the shivers.  My mother consented immediately, a thing which can be explained only on the assumption that she expected her darling child with the beautiful blond locks to make a good impression upon my grandfather, whose home was the goal of the journey.  “Very well,” she said, “take the boy along.  But first I will put a warm coat on him.”  “Not necessary; I’ll put him in the footbag.”  And, surely enough, I was hauled up into the carriage