parents were morally strict, and they often discussed the question, whether there were not some way to put a stop to this insolent conduct, but they finally gave it up.  My father had a lurking suspicion that such a custom had existed in antiquity, and, after he-had looked the matter up, said:  “It is a repetition of ancient conditions, the Roman saturnalia, or, what amounts to the same thing, a case where the servants temporarily lord it over the so-called lords.”  When he had thus classified the occurrence historically he was satisfied, the more so as the maids always amused him the following morning by lowering their eyes in a most unusually modest fashion.  Then he would make fantastically extravagant remarks, as though Gil Blas had been his favorite book.  That was not the case, however.  He read Walter Scott exclusively, for which I am grateful to him even to this day, since, even then, a few crumbs fell from his table for me.  His favorite among all the works was Quintin Durward, probably on account of its French subject.

I have here further to add that the terrors of this goose-killing time were by no means ended with the slaughter night and the mournful melodies.  On the contrary, they lasted at least three or four days longer, for the slaughtering time was also the time when the giblets dressed with goose-blood were served daily at our table, a dish which, according to the Pomeranian view, stands unrivaled in the realm of cookery.  Furthermore my father considered it his duty to support the view peculiar to this region, and, when the great steaming platter appeared, would say:  “Ah, that is fine!  Just eat some of this; it is the black soup of the Spartans, full of strength and stamina.”  But I observed that he, along with the rest of us, picked out the dried fruit and almond dumplings, leaving the nourishing gravy for the servants outside, above all for the slaughtering and mourning women, who by their boring operations had established the most legitimate claim to it.

About a fortnight later came the pig-killing, toward which my feeling remained exactly the same as on that occasion when, hardly seven years of age, I had fled from the city toward Alt-Ruppin, in order to escape, not only the spectacle, but a whole gamut of ear-and-heart-rending sounds.  But I had meanwhile grown out of childhood into boyhood, and a boy, whether he will or no, feels honor-bound manfully to take everything that comes along, even if his own deepest nature revolts against it.  That the prospect of rice pudding with raisins in it was a contributing factor in this comedy of bravery, I am unable to say, for fond as I am of good things to eat, I was always, during the weeks just preceding Christmas, half upset by the smell of hot grease that drifted through the house.  At least I never had what could be called a really good appetite during this period, despite the fact that it would have been particularly worth while just then.