"Meanwhile I had terminated my studies. I had been industrious; dry law released me from my internal struggles, from all disturbing trains of thought. Even the most subtle distinctions of the Roman jurists in the most difficult law questions, were enigmas which could be solved, and my mind felt especial satisfaction when it had been successful in such a solution. How totally different were those non-transparent secrets in which neither thought nor feeling were ever entirely consumed. "I passed my legal examination, and commenced my first employment in the service of the State. With an adventure which had befallen me as student a fatal complication in my life now became connected. "One evening I had been walking along the Pregel. The light of the declining sun swept the hollow-eyed warehouses, which were crowded together in large quarters of the town, and hovered, dream-like, behind the sails and masts of the ships which lay at anchor in that part of the river where greater depth of water allowed them to do so. Farther up, lay the heavily-freighted 'Wittinen,' and rafts which had come up from Masuren, with their wooden huts. All were merry upon those bast-covers, for these 'Dschimken,' who at home lived in mud hovels, had been long enough sailing past pasturage and meadows on the river bank to rejoice in their life here, at the end of their journey. "Yonder, one of them in a sheepskin, with a straw hat upon his head, is playing upon a fiddle with two strings; the light-hearted little people danced upon the tree trunks bound together--dancers and spectators clapped their hands; others crouched around a large kettle, out of which they helped themselves with wooden spoons. "Like all pleasures of the people, this merry scene, which might amuse others, touched me. Not far from it, a picture of busy activity attracted me; I saw how eagerly carpenters were at work upon the frame of a ship that seemed to me to be of a peculiar form. Just as I came near, they were about to cease their labours, laid their axes aside, and went towards a man whose singular appearance, when I looked more narrowly at him, made a strange impression upon me. "He reminded me of the hermits of old; a long beard flowed down almost to his girdle, thick black hair fell far down upon his shoulders, a broad-brimmed hat covered his head. As he now turned sideways, sharply-cut features showed themselves in the evening light; his tall form was clad in Oriental fashion, in a garment that hung down to his feet. "Who was that remarkable man, who seemed to step out of the 'thousand and one nights' into the sober life of the old royal Prussian town?