CHAPTER XIX.

A romance which really happened.

After returning to Kottbus from the Christmas vacation I plunged headlong into work, and as I exerted all my powers I made rapid progress.

Thus January passed away, and I was so industrious that I often studied until long after midnight.  I had not even gone to the theatre, though I had heard that the Von Hoxar Company was unusually good.  The leading lady, especially, was described as a miracle of beauty and remarkably talented.  This excited my curiosity, and when a school-mate who had made the stage manager’s acquaintance told us that he would be glad to have us appear at the next performance of The Robbers, I of course promised to be present.

We went through our parts admirably, and no one in the crowded house suspected the identity of the chorus of robbers who sang with so much freshness and vivacity.

I was deeply interested in what was passing on the stage, and, concealed at the wings, I witnessed the greater part of the play.

Rarely has so charming an Amalie adorned the boards as the eighteen-year-old actress, who, an actor’s child, had already been several years on the stage.

The consequence of this visit to the theatre was that, instead of studying historical dates, as I had intended, I took out Panthea and Abradatus, and on that night and every succeeding one, as soon as I had finished my work for the manager, I added new five-foot iambics to the tragedy, whose material I drew from Xenophon.

Whenever the company played I went to the theatre, where I saw the charming Clara in comedy parts, and found that all the praises I had heard of her fell short of the truth.  Yet I did not seek her acquaintance.  The examination was close at hand, and it scarcely entered my mind to approach the actress.  But the Fates had undertaken to act as mediators and make me the hero of a romance which ended so speedily, and in a manner which, though disagreeable, was so far from tragical, that if I desired to weave the story of my own life into a novel I should be ashamed to use the extensive apparatus employed by Destiny.

Rather more than a week had passed since the last performance of The Robbers, when one day, late in the afternoon, the streets were filled with uproar.  A fire had broken out, and as soon as Professor Braune’s lesson was over I joined the human flood.  The boiler in the Kubisch cloth factory had burst, a part of the huge building near it was in flames, and a large portion of the walls had fallen.

When, with several school-mates, I reached the scene of the disaster, the fire had already been mastered, but many hands were striving to remove the rubbish and save the workmen buried underneath.  I eagerly lent my aid.

Meanwhile it had grown dark, and we were obliged to work by the light of lanterns.  Several men, fortunately all living, had been brought out, and we thought that the task of rescue was completed, when the rumour spread that some girls employed in one of the lower rooms were still missing.