During the whole evening, the terrible mark on my forehead burned like fire.
This is the anniversary of my return to the summer palace.
At that time, I dreamt that a star had fallen down on me, and that a man, with averted gaze, was saying: "Thou too, art alone!"
There are depths of the soul, which no safety-lamp ever enters, and where all light is extinguished. I turn away--for naught dwells there but the angry storm-wind.
My thoughts go back to my childhood. I was three years old when my mother died. I have nothing to remind me of it, except that the moving about and pushing in the next room greatly frightened me. Oh mother! why did you die so soon? How different I would have been--
I? Who is this I? If it could have been different, it were not I. It was to be thus.
They put black clothes on me and my brother, and I only remember that father went with us. He said that it would be better if we did not remain with him, and that it was not well for us to grow up in solitude. He kissed us at parting. He kissed me and my brother, then he kissed me once more. It seemed as if he wished to retain my kiss for the last.
What are the memories of my childhood? A silent convent, my aunt the lady abbess, and my friend Emma. I remember this much, however: when strangers came, they would turn to me and say: "Oh, what a pretty child! what large brown eyes!" Emma told me that I was not pretty, and that the visitors were only laughing at and mocking me; but my mirror told me that I was pretty. I frankly said so to Emma and she confessed that I was. My father came--he had been in America--and he looked at me for a long while. "Father, I am pretty, am I not?" said I to him.