daring experiments, which my pen hesitates to record.  On one occasion one of these unfortunates—­unfortunate because poor and dependent—­had to suffer a jaw tooth to be pulled out with the first pair of tongs that could be found; but it must not be inferred that those who undertook the operation were necessarily rough men.  It was only a case where the socially arrogant, who made themselves so generally conspicuous in those days, especially under the stimulation of wine, did not hesitate to take such liberties.  In rich aristocratic houses in the country they occasionally went to even greater extremes....

How did we live at our house?  On the whole, well, far beyond our station and our means.  So far as the culinary department was concerned, there were, to be sure, occasional strange periods; for example, in the summer time, when, on account of the superabundant yield of milk, the star of milk soup reigned supreme.  Then everybody struck, feigning lack of appetite.

But these were only exceptional conditions, of short duration.  Ordinarily we were well and very sensibly fed, a thing which we owed less to our mother than to our housekeeper, a Miss Schroeder.  Before going any further I must tell about her.  When we reached Swinemuende my mother was still in Berlin taking treatment for her nerves, so that my father was immediately confronted with the question, who should manage the household in the interim.  There were no local newspapers, so he had to inquire around orally.  After a few days a letter was brought by messenger from the head forester’s lodge at Pudagla, inquiring whether the head forester’s sister might offer us her services.  She had learned housekeeping in her brother’s home.  My father answered immediately in the affirmative and for two days rejoiced in the thought of being able to take into his home as housekeeper a sister of a head forester, and from Pudagla, to boot.  That afforded relief; he felt honored.  On the third day the Schroeder girl drove up to our house and was received by my father.  He declared later that he had kept his countenance, but I am not quite sure of it, in spite of the possibility that his good heart and his politeness may have made the victory over himself easier.  The good Schroeder girl, be it said, was a pendant to the “princess with the death’s head,” who came to notice in Berlin at about this time.  What had caused the misfortune of the latter (who was restored to her original appearance by Dieffenbach, by a plastic surgical treatment, since become famous), I do not know.  In the case of the Schroeder girl, however, it was the smallpox.  Now what is smallpox?  Everybody has seen persons who have been afflicted with smallpox, and has considered the expression, “the devil has threshed peas on his or her face,” more or less apt.  At least the expression has become proverbial.  In this case, however, the proverbial phrase, if applied, would have been mere glossing over, for the Schroeder girl had, not pits