conflict, and I saw him spring up the stairs three steps at a time, I was
delighted, and I knew that my mother was very fond of him. It was just
the same with "Gustel," his sister, who was as amiable and kindly as her
mother.

I can still see the torchlight procession with which the Berlin students
honoured the beloved and respected brothers, and which we watched from
the Grimms' windows because they were higher than ours. But there is a
yet brighter light of fire in my memory. It was shed by the burning
opera house. Our mother, who liked to have us participate in anything
remarkable which might be a recollection for life, took us out of our
beds to the next house, where the Seiffarts lived, and which had a little
tower on it. Thence we gazed in admiration at the ever-deepening glow of
the sky, toward which great tongues of flame kept streaming up, while
across the dusk shot formless masses like radiant spark-showering birds.
Pillars of smoke mingled with the clouds, and the metallic note of the
fire-bells calling for help accompanied the grand spectacle. I was only
six years old, but I remember distinctly that when Ludo and I were taken
to the Lutz swimming-baths next day, we found first on the drill-ground,
then on the bank of the Spree, and in the water, charred pieces, large
and small, of the side-scenes of the theatre. They were the glowing
birds whose flight I had watched from the tower of the Crede house.

This remark reminds me how early our mother provided for our physical
development, for I clearly remember that the tutor who took us little
fellows to the bath called our attention to these bits of decoration
while we were swimming. When I went to Keilhau, at eleven years old,
I had mastered the art completely.

I did, in fact, many things at an earlier age than is customary, because