ulcated in me the strictest love of truth. One would be inclined to
think that these contradictions might have had disastrous consequences.
It was not the case and never will be the case, for life entails many
other similar ones, and human nature can adapt itself even to them.
Certain it is that I acquired one piece of information which it is
better for a child to acquire late or not at all, namely, that at times
the father wishes one thing, and the mother another.

I do not remember that I really went hungry in my earliest childhood, as
I did later, but I do recollect that my mother sometimes had to content
herself with looking on while we children ate, and did so gladly,
because otherwise we could not have had our fill.

III

The principal charm of childhood consists in the fact that every
creature down to the household pets is friendly and kindly disposed
toward children; for out of this arises a feeling of security which
disappears with the first step out into the hostile world and never
returns. This is especially the case among the lower classes. The child
cannot play before the door without being presented with a flower by the
neighboring servant-maid who has been sent across the street to make a
purchase, or to draw water. The fruit-woman throws it a cherry or a pear
out of her basket, or a prosperous burgher perhaps even gives it a small
coin with which it can buy itself a roll. The driver cracks his whip in
passing; the musician as he goes by draws some tones from his
instrument, and whoever does none of all these things at least asks its
name and age, or smiles at it. To be sure, the child must be kept neat
and clean.

My brother and I came in for a bountiful share of this goodwill,
especially on the part of the tenants of our house, our special
neighbors who were almost as much to us as our mother and more than our
severe father. In summer they had their work and could not pay much
attention to us, but then at that season it was not necessary that they
should, as we played in the garden from early till late, from one
bed-time to the next, and the butterflies were company enough. But in
winter, in the rain and snow, when we were confined to the house, almost
everything that entertained and enlivened us came from them.

The wife of the day laborer, Meta by name, was a gigantic figure,
somewhat bent forward, with a stern Old-Testament face, of which I was
vividly reminded by Michaelangelo's Cumaean sybil i