DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62134#0174
166 AN ART-STUDENT IN MUNICH.
fallen in with a tremendous crash; the gables stand up like
golden gables; the white roofs of some lower buildings
gleam ghastly white, with an orange glare behind them.
Men are seen standing on walls and parapets, pouring
torrents of water from the snake-like pipes of the fire-
engines ; but those slender streams of water seem impotent
compared with the raging fire: those pipes look no more
than so many leeches crawling over the roofs. Nevertheless
the flames are abating. The great danger, thank God!
is past. Gradually the fire ceases to rage, to destroy.
Under the escort of two officers, acquaintance of the
Amsels, we were passed along through sentinels and the
crowd till we approached within a few yards of the burning
brewery; but even here, on account of the narrowness of the
lane in which the brewery stood, the view w as not complete.
A mass of engines filled the little street. We were now in
the midst of the long pipes which extended in all directions,
like enormous serpents, across the street, and ran up steep
walls and over precipitous roofs, where men, telling as black
shadows against the fiery glow, plied their whole strength
in deluging the flames. There were no women here except
ourselves. There were soldiers and busy workers, whilst
the corporation, with silk scarfs tied across their breasts,
superintended the operations. All worked earnestly,
eagerly; the flames sank and sank; the neighbouring
church-spire, which had risen above the conflagration illu-
mined with orange and scarlet light, seeming at times,
surrounded with flames, and with its burning cresset, like a
martyr crowned with a celestial star,, and rising towards
heaven from a bed of fire, now paled into an ordinary
church-steeple, shone upon by an ordinary moon. Moon-
light again triumphed; all grew gradually calmer.
Crowds, however, yet lingered around the glowing ruins;
flames yet fitfully leaped and flickered; smoke yet arose in
fallen in with a tremendous crash; the gables stand up like
golden gables; the white roofs of some lower buildings
gleam ghastly white, with an orange glare behind them.
Men are seen standing on walls and parapets, pouring
torrents of water from the snake-like pipes of the fire-
engines ; but those slender streams of water seem impotent
compared with the raging fire: those pipes look no more
than so many leeches crawling over the roofs. Nevertheless
the flames are abating. The great danger, thank God!
is past. Gradually the fire ceases to rage, to destroy.
Under the escort of two officers, acquaintance of the
Amsels, we were passed along through sentinels and the
crowd till we approached within a few yards of the burning
brewery; but even here, on account of the narrowness of the
lane in which the brewery stood, the view w as not complete.
A mass of engines filled the little street. We were now in
the midst of the long pipes which extended in all directions,
like enormous serpents, across the street, and ran up steep
walls and over precipitous roofs, where men, telling as black
shadows against the fiery glow, plied their whole strength
in deluging the flames. There were no women here except
ourselves. There were soldiers and busy workers, whilst
the corporation, with silk scarfs tied across their breasts,
superintended the operations. All worked earnestly,
eagerly; the flames sank and sank; the neighbouring
church-spire, which had risen above the conflagration illu-
mined with orange and scarlet light, seeming at times,
surrounded with flames, and with its burning cresset, like a
martyr crowned with a celestial star,, and rising towards
heaven from a bed of fire, now paled into an ordinary
church-steeple, shone upon by an ordinary moon. Moon-
light again triumphed; all grew gradually calmer.
Crowds, however, yet lingered around the glowing ruins;
flames yet fitfully leaped and flickered; smoke yet arose in