oyed a sort of advantage
over many of the others. Nevertheless I too felt the difference, and in
especial had much to suffer from the maid-servant, who put a spiteful
construction upon my most innocent actions; for example, she once
interpreted the pulling out of my handkerchief as a sign that I wished
to have it filled, which drove the most burning blushes to my cheeks and
tears to my eyes. As soon as I became conscious of Susanna's partiality
and the injustice of her maid I stepped outside the magic circle of
childhood. It occurred very early.

V

Two incidents which took place in this school-room are still vividly
present before me. I remember, to begin with, that I received there my
first awful impression of nature and the invisible power which prophetic
man surmises behind it. The child has a period, which lasts a fairly
long time, when it believes that the whole world is subject to its
parents, at least to the father who always remains standing somewhat
mysteriously in the background, and when it would be just as likely to
beg them for good weather as for a plaything. This period naturally
comes to an end when the child, to its astonishment, undergoes the
experience that things occur which are quite as unwelcome to its parents
as a beating is to itself, and with this period disappears a great part
of the mystic spell which surrounds the sacred head of the father:
indeed not until it is past does real human independence begin. My eyes
were opened on this subject by a fearful thunderstorm, which was
accompanied by a cloud burst and hail.

It was a sultry afternoon, one of those which scorch up the earth and
roast all its creatures. We children sat around on our benches, lazy and
depressed, with our catechisms or primers. Susanna herself nodded
sleepily, and indulgently allowed to pass unnoticed the jokes and
teasing, by means of which we tried to keep ourselves awake. Not even
the flies were buzzing, except the very small ones which are always
lively, when all of a sudden the first thunderclap sounded and
reverberated, crashing and roaring, among the worm-eaten rafters of the
old, dilapidated house. In the most desperate combination, such as only
occurs during storms in the north, a clatter of hail stones now
followed, which in less than a minute demolished all the window-panes on
the windy side, and immediately after this, indeed in the midst of it,
came a downpour of rain which seemed to be the prelude of a new