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.