The swaggering, parasitic brothers-in-law were extremely unwelcome to the housewife, for she did not bear the burden of existence as light-heartedly as her husband did, and she knew they would not leave again so long as there was a piece of bacon hanging in the chimney; but she contented herself with complaining in private, and at times pouring out her heart to my mother.  She, too, was fond of us children, and in summer, as often as she could, she presented us with red and white currants, which she, in turn, begged from a stingy friend.  I, however, avoided her too close proximity, for she made it her business to cut my nails as often as it was necessary, and I detested this on account of the prickly feeling in the nerve ends which it caused.  She read the Bible diligently, and long before I could read it myself I received from her my first strong, nay terrible, impression from this gloomy book, when she read to me out of Jeremiah the horrible passage in which the angry prophet foretells that in the time of great distress the mothers would slaughter their own children and eat them.  I can remember yet with what terror this passage inspired me when I heard it, perhaps because I did not know whether it referred to the past or to the future, to Jerusalem or to Wesselburen, and because I was myself a child and had a mother.

 IV

In my fourth year I was sent to a primary-school.  It was kept by an old spinster, Susanna by name, of tall and masculine stature, with friendly blue eyes, which shone forth like candles from out a pale grayish face.  We children were planted around the walls of the spacious chamber which served as school-room, and which was rather dark.  The boys were on one side, the girls on the other; Susanna’s table, piled high with school books, stood in the middle, and she herself, a white clay pipe in her mouth and a cup of tea before her, sat behind it in an ancestral arm chair which inspired no little respect.  Before her lay a long ruler, which, however, was not used for drawing lines but for chastising us when we were no longer to be held in check by frowning and clearing of the throat.  A cornucopia full of currants, destined as a reward for extraordinary virtues, lay beside it.  The raps, however, fell more regularly than the currants; indeed, the cornucopia, sparingly as Susanna made use of the contents, was sometimes completely empty; we thus learned Kant’s categorical imperative sufficiently early.

Children large and small were called up to the table from time to time, the more advanced pupils for instruction in writing, the multitude to repeat their lessons and to receive raps on the fingers with the ruler, or currants, as the case might be.  A sullen maid-servant, who even occasionally took a hand in inflicting punishment, went up and down the room, and was at times occupied in a most unpleasant manner with the youngest pupils, for which reason she kept sharp watch that they should not partake too freely of the sweet things which they brought with them.