about ten o'clock
`` You have all of you often said that a peculiar planet which presides over me has a manner of bringing marvellous matters about my path on occasions of importance , matters in which people do not believe and which often seem to myself as if they proceeded out of my own inner being , although there they are , outside of me also , taking form as mystic symbols of that element of the marvellous which we find all about us everywhere in life . It was so with me this day two years ago in Dresden . That long day had dragged itself out in dull , mysterious silence ; everything was quiet outside the gate -- not a shot to be heard . Late in the evening -- it might have been about ten o'clock , I slunk into a coffee house in the old market , where , in an out-of-the-way back room into which none of the hated foreigners were allowed to penetrate , friends of like minds and opinions gave each other reassurance of comfort and hope . It was there where , notwithstanding all the lies which were current , the true news of the engagements at the Katzbach , Culm , & c. , were first received , where our R. told us of the victory at Leipzig two days after it happened , though God knows how he obtained his knowledge of it . My way had led me past the Brühl Palace , where the Field Marshal was quartered , and I had been struck by the unusual lighting-up of the salons , as well as the stir going on all over the house . I was just mentioning this to my friends , with the remark that the enemy must have something in hand , when R. came hurrying in , breathless , and in great excitement .