Recollections of My Childhood and Youth

by Georg Brandes

VIII.

In the wood attic, a little room divided from the main garret by wooden bars, in which a quantity of split firewood and more finely chopped fir sticks, smelling fresh and dry, are piled up in obliquely arranged heaps, a little urchin with tightly closed mouth and obstinate expression has, for more than two hours, been bearing his punishment of being incarcerated there.

Several times already his anxious mother has sent the housemaid to ask whether he will beg pardon yet, and he has only shaken his head. He is hungry; for he was brought up here immediately after school. But he will not give in, for he is in the right. It is not his fault that the grown- up people cannot understand him. They do not know that what he is suffering now is nothing to what he has had to suffer. It is true that he would not go with the nurse and his little brother into the King's Gardens. But what do Father and Mother know of the ignominy of hearing all day from the other schoolboys: "Oh! so you are fetched by the nurse!" or "Here comes your nurse to fetch you!" He is overwhelmed with shame at the thought of the other boys' scorn. She is not his nurse, she is his brother's. He could find his way home well enough, but how can he explain to the other boys that his parents will not trust him with the little one yet, and so send for them both at the same time! Now there shall be an end to it; he will not go to the King's Gardens with the nurse again.

It is the housemaid, once more, come to ask if he will not beg pardon now. In vain. Everything has been tried with him, scolding, and even a box on the ear; but he has not been humbled. Now he stands here; he will not give in.

But this time his kind mother has not let the girl come empty-handed. His meal is passed through the bars and he eats it. It is so much the easier to hold out. And some hours later he is brought down and put to bed without having apologised.

Before I had so painfully become aware of the ignominy of going with the maid to the King's Gardens, I had been exceedingly fond of the place. What gardens they were for hide and seek, and puss in the corner! What splendid alleys for playing Paradise, with Heaven and Hell! To say nothing of playing at horses! A long piece of tape was passed over and under the shoulders of two playfellows, and you drove them with a tight rein and a whip in your hand. And if it were fun in the old days when I only had tape for reins, it was ever so much greater fun now that I had had a present from my father of splendid broad reins of striped wool, with bells, that you could hear from far enough when the pair came tearing down the wide avenues.

I was fond of the gardens, which were large and at that time much larger than they are now; and of the trees, which were many, at that time many more than now. And every part of the park had its own attraction. The Hercules pavilion was mysterious; Hercules with the lion, instructive and powerful. A pity that it had become such a disgrace to go there!

I had not known it before. One day, not so long ago, I had felt particularly happy there. I had been able for a long time to read correctly in my reading-book and write on my slate. But one day Mr. Voltelen had said to me: "You ought to learn to read writing." And from that moment forth my ambition was set upon reading writing, an idea which had never occurred to me before. When my tutor first showed me writing, it had looked to me much as cuneiform inscriptions and hieroglyphics would do to ordinary grown-up people, but by degrees I managed to recognize the letters I was accustomed to in this their freer, more frivolous disguise, running into one another and with their regularity broken up. In the first main avenue of the King's Gardens I had paced up and down, in my hand the thin exercise-book, folded over in the middle,--the first book of writing I had ever seen,--and had already spelt out the title, "Little Red Riding-Hood." The story was certainly not very long; still, it filled several of the narrow pages, and it was exciting to spell out the subject, for it was new to me. In triumphant delight at having conquered some difficulties and being on the verge of conquering others, I kept stopping in front of a strange nurse-girl, showed her the book, and asked: "Can you read writing?"

Twenty-three years later I paced up and down the same avenue as a young man, once more with a book of manuscript, that I was reading, in my hand. I was fixing my first lecture in my mind, and I repeated it over and over again to myself until I knew it almost by heart, only to discover, to my disquiet, a few minutes later, that I had forgotten the whole, and that was bad enough; for what I wished to say in my lecture were things that I had very much at heart.

The King's Garden continued to occupy its place in my life. Later on, for so many years, when Spring and Summer passed by and I was tied to the town, and pined for trees and the scent of flowers, I used to go to the park, cross it obliquely to the beds near the beautiful copper beeches, by the entrance from the ramparts, where there were always flowers, well cared for and sweet scented. I caressed them with my eyes, and inhaled their perfume leaning forward over the railings.