Hammer and Anvil

'Hammer and Anvil' is an adventure-drama novel written by Friedrich Spielhagen. The story begins with a group of students who were standing in a deep recess at the open window of their classroom. The sparrows were noisily chattering in the school yard, and some scattered rays of the late summer sun glanced past the old gray walls down to the grass-grown pavement; from the classroom, which was high-ceilinged, sunless, and ill-ventilated, came the buzzing sound of repressed talk from their schoolfellows, who were all in their places, bent over their Sophocles, and watching for the arrival of the «old man,» who was looked for every moment.