“So am I sixteen,” he caught his breath, thrilled at the thought of being the same age as she. “Do you remember me?”
“You are Zippel’s boy (Zippel had been his nurse)—of course, I remember you. Don’t you remember how we used to play in the yard while Aunt Graettel and Zippel talked and talked and talked—”
“And do you remember how we used to play ‘Lost in the woods’?” he reminded her, “and Zippel and your Aunt couldn’t find us, and we lay hidden under the old broken boat, laughing and watching your Aunt and Zippel through the cracks as they ran around and wrung their hands?”
They both laughed merrily. At every stage of life the preceding stage is childhood, reminiscent of things to laugh at.
“Where have you been?” he soon asked her, settling down astride a backless chair.
“With my grandfather near Freiburg—we lived near the Schwarzwald—but he died and then grandma died and then I had nobody but Aunt Graettel—she is my great-aunt—and she brought me here.”
She heaved a sigh, sadness coming over her face.
“Why didn’t you go to your mother?” he asked naively.
“I have no mother—I have no father either—they had died before I was two—my father was killed by the thieves.—”
She was finishing her toilet as she spoke, having donned a flaming red blouse, and halted for a moment absently, staring blankly in front of her.