ld 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.

During the hours of the night which followed these evening visits
I often succeeded in working earnestly for two or three hours in
preparation for the examination. During my recitations, however,
weariness asserted itself, and even more strongly the new feeling which
had obtained complete mastery over me. Here I could not shake off the
delightful memories of these evenings because I did not strive to battle
with them.

I am not without talent for drawing, and even at that time it was an
easy matter to reproduce anything which had caught my eye, not only
distinctly, but sometimes attractively and with a certain degree of
fidelity to nature. So my note-book was filled with figures which amazed
me when I saw them afterwards, for my excited imagination had filled
page after page with a perfect Witch's Sabbath of compositions, in which
the oddest scrolls and throngs of genii blended with flowers, buds,
and all sorts of emblems of love twined around initial letters or
the picture of the person who had captured my heart at a time so
inopportune.

I owe the suggestion of some