PIEPENBRINK. Bravo!
KLEINMICHEL. But the Colonel, too, is said to be that kind of a man.
BOLZ. Possibly he is, I do not know; but of Oldendorf I know it. I
looked straight into his heart on the occasion of an unpleasant
experience I went through. I was once on the point of burning to
powder when he was kind enough to prevent it. Him I have to thank for
sitting here. He saved my life.
SENDEN. He lies abominably!
[_Starts forward_.]
ADELAIDE (_holding him back_). Be still! I believe there is some truth
to the story.
PIEPENBRINK. Well now, it was very fine of him to save your life; but
that kind of thing often happens.
MRS. PIEPENBRINK. Do tell us about it, Doctor!
BOLZ. The little affair is like a hundred others and would not
interest me at all, had I not been through it myself. Picture to
yourself an old house. I am a student living on the third floor. In
the house opposite me lives a young scholar; we do not know each
other. At dead of night I am awakened by a great noise and a strange
crackling under me. If it were mice, they must have been having a
torchlight procession for the room was brilliantly illuminated. I rush
to the window, the bright flame from the story under me leaps up to
where I stand. My window-panes burst about my head, and a vile cloud
of smoke rushes in on me. There being no great pleasure under the
circumstances in leaning out of the window, I rush to the door and
throw it open. The stairs, too, cannot resist the mean impulse
peculiar to old wood, they are all ablaze.
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