the fairest fairy tale."

Ay, our lives are often like fairy tales.

The Scheherezade "Fate" had found the bridge to lead the student to the
actress, and the means employed were of no less magnitude than a
conflagration, the rescue of a life, and a wound, as well as the somewhat
improbable combined action of a student and a prompter. True, more
simple methods would scarcely have brought the youth with the examination
in his head and a pretty girl in his heart to seek the acquaintanceship
of the fair actress.

Fate urged me swiftly on; for Clara's mother was an enthusiastic woman,
who in her youth had herself been an ornament of the stage, and I can
still hear her exclamation, "My dear young sir, every German girl ought
to kiss that wound!"

I can see her indignantly forbid the prompter to tie his gay
handkerchief over the injury and draw a clean one from her own velvet bag
to bind my forehead. Boltze and my school-mates greeted me very warmly.
Director Tzschirner said something very similar to Herr Winzer's remark.

And so matters would have remained, and in a few weeks, after passing the
examination, I should have returned to my happy mother, had not a
perverse Fate willed otherwise.

This time a bit of linen was the instrument used to lead me into the path
allotted, for when the wound healed and the handkerchief which Clara's
mother had tied round it came back from the wash, I was uncertain whether
to return it in person or send it by a messenger with a few words of