After a time I no longer liked to go to school, and I do not think that I made any progress with my lessons. My exercises were done only because I was afraid of getting punished. Ambition I had none. Geography and history I did not care for, and doing sums I positively hated. Furthermore, my teacher had found out that I had no voice and consequently excluded me from singing. The only thing that I really liked was to form sentences. But that subject we had only once a week, and it was done in the following manner.—The teacher wrote with his chalk different words on the blackboard, and we had to use them in simple or compound sentences. There was not one word which I could not have brought into a sentence somehow, whereas all the other children sat silent, and never showed any aptitude for the subject. During the rest of the lessons I was inattentive and tried continually to chat with my neighbours. Very often I was punished.
We were also taught scripture every Friday. A young priest whom we called "catechist" came to the school and read the catechism to us. I do not remember whether I behaved any better during that lesson, the only thing I know is that I felt strangely moved when the tall figure of the catechist, clad in a long black gown, entered our schoolroom and took his seat with an air of dignity. In my opinion the young catechist was a handsome man. His eyes were blue, his hair was thick and brown, but his mouth was always shut tightly, and he struck me as hard and proud. When I think of that time, I can see the schoolroom again. None of the children were more than ten years old, and while we sat perfectly still the catechist asked one question after another.
"Who created the world?" Whereupon a young voice answered:
"God created the world."
"What does that mean—to create?" Another voice:
"To create means to produce something out of nothing."
"Must all people die?"
"All people must die."
These last words always occupied my thoughts, and constantly worried me. Sometimes I woke at nights from my slumber, and imagined that I heard the question, "Must all people die?" whereupon a voice answered: "All people must die." After that I felt inexpressibly sad. I sat up in my bed, listened to the gentle breathing of my sisters, and wondered which of us would be the first to die. A maddening fear rushed to my heart when I thought that my father and my mother had also to die some day. I could not go to sleep again, but thought about what might happen if such were the case, and suffered so intensely that I screamed aloud. Then one of my parents came to my bed and tried to comfort me, thinking that I had a nightmare.
The summer always brought to us a most beautiful event. As soon as the long school holidays began, my mother took us to relations of hers, who lived at a distant village. The journey lasted six hours, and we travelled in the post-coach. In reality one could not even call the place a village, because there was only one house, the home of our relations. It was a mill, and all around it stretched the glorious woods of the lower parts of Austria, sometimes interrupted by lovely meadows, where the grass used to grow to such a height that it towered above our heads. Close by the mill flowed a clear, narrow brook, so narrow in some places that we could quite easily jump over it, in others so wide that we had to wade through it whenever we wanted to cross. In front of the house there was a large kitchen-garden that adjoined a still larger orchard, a spot full of ever new delights. At one time an apple-tree, as if to tease us, would let a beautiful apple fall to our feet; at another time the berries of a shrub would at last begin to show their colouring, and then, again, a wild flower that had opened overnight. At the very end of the garden there was also a beehive. Although afraid of the bees we dared to approach them cautiously, and even advanced to the back of the hive, where little glass windows enabled us to observe the dear, diligent creatures quite closely.