The clouds in the sky of childhood do not last long, and disappear
after a short, warm tear-rain. I was shortly again at the castle, and
the Princess gave me her hand to kiss and then brought her children,
the young princes and princesses, and we played together, as if we had
known each other for years. Those were happy days when, after
school--for I was now attending school--I could go to the castle and
play. We had everything the heart could wish. I found playthings
there which my mother had shown me in the shop-windows, and which were
so dear, she told me, that poor people could live a whole week on what
they cost. When I begged the Princess' permission to take them home
and show them to my mother, she was perfectly willing. I could turn
over and over and look for hours at a time at beautiful picture books,
which I had seen in the book stores with my father, but which were made
only for very good children. Everything which belonged to the young
princes belonged also to me--so I thought, at least. Furthermore, I
was not only allowed to carry away what I wished, but I often gave away
the playthings to other children. In short, I was a young Communist,
in the full sense of the term. I remember at one time the Princess had
a golden snake which coiled itself around her arm as if it were alive,
and she gave it to us for a plaything. As I was going home I put the
snake on my arm and thought I would give my mother a real fright with
it. On the way, however, I met a woman who noticed the snake and
begged me to show it to her; and then she said if she could only keep
the golden snake, she could release her husband from prison with it.
Naturally I did not stop to think for a minute, but ran away and left
the woman alone with the golden serpent-bracelet. The next day there
was much excitement. The poor woman was brought to the castle and the
people said she had stolen it. Thereupon I grew very angry and
explained with holy zeal that I had given her the bracelet and that I
would not take it back again. What further occurred I know not, but I
remember that after that time, I showed the Princess everything I took
home with me.
It was a long time before my conceptions of Meum and Tuum were fully
settled, and at a very late period they were at times confused, just as
it was a long time before I could distinguish between the blue and red
colors. The last time I remember my friends laughing at me on this
account was when my mother gave me some money to buy apples. She gave
me a groschen. The apples cost only a sechser, and when I gave the
woman the groschen, she said, very sadly as it seemed to me, that she
had sold nothing the whole livelong day and could not give me back a
sechser. She wished I would buy a groschen's worth. Then it occurred
to me that I also had a sechser in my pocket, and thoroughly delighted
that I had solved the difficult problem, I gave it to the woman and
said: "Now you can give me back a sechser." She understood me so
little however that she gave me back the groschen and kept the sechser.
At this time, while I was making almost daily visits to the young
princes at the castle, both to play as well as to study French with
them, another image comes up in my memory. It was the daughter of the
Princess, the Countess Marie. The mother died shortly after the birth
of the child and the Prince subsequently married a second time. I know
not when I saw her for the first time. She emerges from the darkness
of memory slowly and gradually--at first like an airy shadow which
grows more and more distinct as it approaches nearer and nearer, at
last standing before my soul like the moon, which on some stormy night
throws back the cloud-veils from across its face. She was always sick
and suffering and silent, and I never saw her except reclining upon her
couch, upon which two servants brought her into the room and carried
her out again, when she was tired. There she lay in her flowing white
drapery, with her hands generally folded. Her face was so pale and yet
so mild, and her eyes so deep and unfathomable, that I often stood
before her lost in thought and looked upon her and asked myself if she
was not one of the "strange people" also. Many a time she placed her
hand upon my head and then it seemed to me that a thrill ran through
all my limbs and that I could not move or speak, but must forever gaze
into her deep, unfathomable eyes. She conversed very little with us,
but watched our sports, and when at times we grew very noisy and
quarrelsome, she did not complain but held her white hands over her
brow and closed her eyes as if sleeping. But there were days when she
said she felt better, and on such days she sat up on her couch,
conversed with us and told us curious stories. I do not know how old
she was at that time. She was so helpless that she seemed like a
child, and yet was so serious and silent that she could not have been
one. When people alluded to her they involuntarily spoke gently and
softly. They called her "the angel," and I never heard anything said
of her that was not good and lovely. Often when I saw her lying so
silent and helpless, and thought that she would never walk again in
life, that there was for her neither work nor joy, that they would
carry her here and there upon her couch until they laid her upon her
eternal bed of rest, I asked myself why she had been sent into this
world, when she could have rested so gently on the bosom of the angels
and they could have borne her through the air on their white wings, as
I had seen in some sacred pictures. Again I felt as if I must take a
part of her burden, so that she need not carry it alone, but we with
her. I could not tell her all this for I knew it was not proper. I
had an indefinable feeling. It was not a desire to embrace her. No
one could have done that, for it would have wronged her. It seemed to
me as if I could pray from the very bottom of my heart that she might
be released from her burden.
One warm spring day she was brought into our room. She looked
exceedingly pale; but her eyes were deeper and brighter than ever, and
she sat upon her couch and called us to her. "It is my birth-day,"
said she, "and I was confirmed early this morning. Now, it is
possible," she continued as she looked upon her father with a smile,
"that God may soon call me to him, although I would gladly remain with
you much longer. But if I am to leave you, I desire that you should
not wholly forget me; and, therefore, I have brought a ring for each of
you, which you must now place upon the fore-finger. As you grow older
you can continue to change it until it fits the little finger; but you
must wear it for your lifetime."
With these words she took the five rings she wore upon her fingers,
which she drew off, one after the other, with a look so sad and yet so
affectionate, that I pressed my eyes closely to keep from weeping. She
gave the first ring to her eldest brother and kissed him, the second
and third to the two princesses, and the fourth to the youngest prince,
and kissed them all as she gave them the rings. I stood near by, and,
looking fixedly at her white hand, saw that she still had a ring upon
her finger; but she leaned back and appeared wearied. My eyes met
hers, and as the eyes of a child speak so loudly, she must have easily
known my thoughts, I would rather not have had the last ring, for I
felt that I was a stranger; that I did not belong to her, and that she
was not as affectionate to me as to her brothers and sisters. Then
came a sharp pain in my breast as if a vein had burst or a nerve had
been severed, and I knew not which way to turn to conceal my anguish.
She soon raised herself again, placed her hand upon my forehead and
looked down into my heart so deeply that I felt I had not a thought
invisible to her. She slowly drew the last ring from her finger, gave
it to me and said; "I intended to have taken this with me, when I went
from you, but it is better you should wear it and think of me when I am
no longer with you. Read the words engraved upon the ring: 'As God
wills.' You have a passionate heart, easily moved. May life subdue
but not harden it." Then she kissed me as she had her brothers and
gave me the ring.
All my feelings I do not truly know. I had then grown up to boyhood,
and the mild beauty of the suffering angel could not linger in my young
heart without alluring it. I loved her as only a boy can love, and
boys love with an intensity and truth and purity which few preserve in
their youth and manhood; but I believed she belonged to the "strange
people" to whom you are not allowed to speak of love. I scarcely
understood the earnest words she spoke to me. I only felt that her
soul was as near to mine as one human soul can be to another. All
bitterness was gone from my heart. I felt myself no longer alone, no
longer a stranger, no longer shut out. I was by her, with her and in
her. I thought it might be a sacrifice for her to give me the ring,
and that she might have preferred to take it to the grave with her, and
a feeling arose in my soul which overshadowed all other feelings, and I
said with quivering voice: "Thou must keep the ring if thou dost not
wish to give it to me; for what is thine is mine." She looked at me a
moment surprised and thoughtfully. Then she took the ring, placed it
on her finger, kissed me once more on the forehead, and said gently to
me: "Thou knowest not what thou sayest. Learn to understand thyself.
Then shall thou be happy and make many others happy."