We have beer-soup and Aunt Anna to dinner. Now beer-soup is a nasty dish
and Aunt Anna is not very nice either.
She has yellow teeth and a little hump and very severe eyes, which are
not even both equally severe. She is nearly always scolding us and, when
she sees a chance, she pinches us.
The worst of all, however, is that she is constantly setting us a good
example, which can easily end by gradually and inevitably driving us to
embrace wickedness.
Aunt Anna does not like beer-soup any more than we do. But of course she
eats it with a voluptuous expression on her face and looks angrily at my
little boy, who does not even make an attempt to behave nicely:
"Why doesn't the little boy eat his delicious beer-soup?" she asks.
A scornful silence.
"Such delicious beer-soup! I know a poor, wretched boy who would be
awfully glad to have such delicious beer-soup."
My little boy looks with great interest at Auntie, who is swallowing her
soup with eyes full of ecstatic bliss:
"Where is he?" he asks.
Aunt Anna pretends not to hear.
"Where is the poor boy?" he asks again.
"Yes, where is he?" I ask. "What's his name?"
Aunt Anna gives me a furious glance.
"What's his name, Aunt Anna?" asks my little boy. "Where does he live?
He can have my beer-soup with pleasure."
"Mine too," I say, resolutely, and I push my plate from me.
My little boy never takes his great eyes off Aunt Anna's face.
Meanwhile, she has recovered herself:
"There are many poor boys who would thank God if they could get such
delicious beer-soup," she says. "Very many. Everywhere."
"Yes, but tell us of one, Auntie," I say.
My little boy has slipped down from his chair. He stands with his chin
just above the table and both his hands round his plate, ready to march
off with the beer-soup to the poor boy, if only he can get his address.
But Aunt Anna does not allow herself to be played with:
"Heaps of poor boys," she says again. "Hun-dreds! And therefore another
little boy, whom I will not name, but who is in this room, ought to be
ashamed that he is not thankful for his beer-soup."
My little boy stares at Aunt Anna like the bird fascinated by the snake.
"Such delicious beer-soup!" she says. "I must really ask for another
little helping."
Aunt Anna revels in her martyrdom. My little boy stands speechless, with
open mouth and round eyes.