If, however, I preferred to remain, I should be permitted to do so.
At the close of the session I was standing in the square in front of the school when Professor Tzschirner approached, and I asked his permission to leave school that very day.

A smile of satisfaction flitted over his manly, intellectual face, and he granted my request at once.
So my Kottbus school-days ended, and, unfortunately, in a way unlike what I had hoped.

When I said farewell to Professor Tzschirner and his wife I could not restrain my tears.

His eyes, too, were dim, and he repeated to me what I had already heard him say in the conference, and wrote the same thing to my mother in a letter explaining my departure from the school.

The report which he sent with it contains not a single word to indicate a compulsory withdrawal or the advice to leave it.
When I had stopped at Guben and said goodbye to Clara my dream was literally fulfilled.