ng witness when we were born, the names of our
parents and godparents, and that we were not issued _sine loco et anno_.

But, oh this beginning! Would there were none, since, with the
beginning, all thought and memories alike cease. When we thus dream
back into childhood, and from childhood into infinity, this bad
beginning continually flies further away. The thoughts pursue it and
never overtake it; just as a child seeks the spot where the blue sky
touches the earth, and runs and runs, while the sky always runs before
it, yet still touches the earth--but the child grows weary and never
reaches the spot.

But even since we were once there--wherever it may be, where we had a
beginning, what do we know now? For memory shakes itself like the
spaniel, just come out of the waves, while the water runs in, his eyes
and he looks very strangely.

I believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first
time. They may have seen me often before, but one evening it seemed as
if it were cold. Although I lay in my mother's lap, I shivered and was
chilly, or I was frightened. In short, something came over me which
reminded me of my little Ego in no ordinary manner. Then my mother
showed me the bright stars, and I wondered at them, and thought that
she had made them very beautifully. Then I felt warm again, and could
sleep well.

Furthermore, I remember how I once lay in the grass and everything
about me tossed and nodded, hummed and buzzed. Then there came a great
swarm of little, myriad-footed, winged creatures, which lit upon my
forehead and eyes and said, "Good day." Immediately my eyes smarted,
and I cried to my mother, and she said: "Poor little one, how the gnats
have stung him!" I could not open my eyes or see the blue sky any
longer, but my mother had a bunch of fresh violets in her hand, and it
seemed as if a dark-blue, fresh, spicy perfume were wafted through my
senses. Even now, whenever I see the first violets, I remember this,
and it seems to me that I must close my eyes so that the old dark-blue
heaven of that day may again rise over my soul.

Still further do I remember, how, at another time, a new world
disclosed itself to me--more beautiful than the star-world or the
violet perfume. It was on an Easter morning, and my mother had dressed
me early. Before the window stood our old church. It was not
beautiful, but still it had a lofty roof and tower, and on the tower a
golden cross, and