It was a disappointment not to meet the latter, yet I felt a certain sense of relief.  Fate intended to let me escape the storm uninjured, for my heart had been by no means calm since I mounted the narrow stairs leading to the apartments of the fair actress.  But just as I was taking leave the pavement echoed with the noise of hoofs and the rattle of wheels.  Prince Puckler’s coupe stopped in front of the house and the young girl descended the steps.

She entered the room laughing merrily, but when she saw me she became graver, and looked at her mother in surprise.

A brief explanation, the cry, “Oh, you are the man who was hurt!” and then the proof that the room did not owe its neat appearance to her, for her cloak flew one way, her hat another, and her gloves a third.  After this disrobing she stood before me in the costume of the youthful Richelieu, so bewitchingly charming, so gay and bright, that I could not restrain my delight.

She had come from old Prince Puckler, who, as he never visited the theatre in the city, wished to see her in the costume whose beauty had been so much praised.  The vigorous, gay old gentleman had charmed her, and she declared that she liked him far better than any of the young men.  But as she knew little of his former life and works, I told her of his foolish pranks and chivalrous deeds.

It seemed as if her presence increased my powers of description, and when I at last took leave she exclaimed:  “You’ll come again, won’t you?  After one has finished one’s part, it’s the best time to talk.”

Did I wait to be asked a second time?  Oh, no!  Even had I not been the “foolhardy Ebers,” I should have accepted her invitation.  The very next evening I was in the pleasant sitting-room, and whenever I could slip away after supper I went to the girl, whom I loved more and more ardently.  Sometimes I repeated poems of my own, sometimes she recited and acted passages from her best parts, amid continual jesting and laughter.  My visits seemed like so many delightful festivals, and Clara’s mother took care that they were not so long as to weary her treasure.  She often fell asleep while we were reading and talking, but usually she sent me away before midnight with “There’s another day coming to-morrow.”  Long before my first visit to the young actress I had arranged a way of getting into the house at any time, and Dr. Boltze had no suspicion of my expeditions, since on my return I strove the more zealously to fulfil all my school duties.

This sounds scarcely credible, yet it is strictly true, for from a child up to the present time I have always succeeded, spite of interruptions of every kind, in devoting myself to the occupation in which I was engaged.  Loud noises in an adjoining room, or even tolerably severe physical pain, will not prevent my working on as soon as the subject so masters me as to throw the external world and my own body into the background.  Only when the suffering becomes very intense, the whole being must of necessity yield to it.