After we had been at the new place for a considerable time, I began to notice that something was going wrong. I could see that my father looked thoughtful, even sad, and that my mother cried often. Then my father went away suddenly, and did not return for many weeks. When he came back again, he looked pale and troubled, and my mother never ceased to cry.
One day I went into the little kitchen-garden and wanted to sit down on an old chair which happened to be there. But another girl of my age, who was the daughter of one of our tenants and had hitherto treated me very politely, was already sitting on the chair. She did not get up as I had expected her to do, but crossed her arms above her head and looked at me sleepily.
"Get up!" I demanded sullenly.
"Why should I get up?"
"Because I want to sit down."
"Well, sit down on the ground."
That answer made me terribly angry.
"Get up!" I shouted, and stamped with my foot; "that chair belongs to us!"
The girl laughed, and after a while she said, still laughing:
"Nothing whatever belongs to you; everything has been seized from your people; all you have left is debts."