he 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 s