Unfortunately, this purchase could not be made without spending some money. Mother had to sacrifice one of her pouches, perhaps even two. She did it just reluctantly. The pigeons did not give her the same joy, they gave us children. Our greatest pleasure was to watch the dear animals changing their tender plumage. Father had bought two pairs of very expensive "blue-striped" pigeons. He brought them home and showed them to us. He hoped to make at least three taler of them. Some days later, the blue feathers lay on the ground: they had not been real, but had been glued on. The precious "blue-striped" pigeons turned out to be entirely worthless, common, white ones. Father purchased a very pretty, young, grey cock pigeon for one taler and fifteen good groschen. After a short time, the pigeon turned out to be blind of old age. He never left the pigeonry, his value was zero. Such and similar incidents occurred increasingly. The consequence of this was that mother had to sacrifice another pouch to really get the pigeon-trade going. Of course, father also tried his best. He took no leisure-time. He attended all markets, all inns and bars in order to buy or to find buyers. One time he bought peas, another time vetches, he had obtained "almost for free". He was always on the move, from one village to another, from one farmer to another. He constantly brought home cheese, eggs, and butter, we did not even need. He had bought them over price, just entice the farmers' wives into a deal, and could only unload them with difficulties and at a loss. This restless, unprofitable life yielded no gain, but devoured the happiness of our home. It even ravaged the remaining linen pouches. Mother talked to him kindly, in vain. She worried and kept quiet, until it would have been a sin to bear it any longer. Then, she arrived at a decision and went to Judge Layritz, who turned out to be much, much more reasonable in this case, than at that other time with our frogs. She presented her case to him. She told him that she did love her husband very, very much, but had to consider primarily her children's well-being. She disclosed to him that she owned an additional pouch, she had not shown, but kept from her husband. She asked the judge to be so kind to tell her how she should invest this money in order to achieve security for herself and her children. She presented him with the pouch. He opened it and counted. There were sixty hard, shiny, well polished talers. This caused great astonishment! Judge Layritz thought about it, then he said: "My dear Mrs. May, I know you. You are a good woman, and I will vouch for you. Our midwife is old, we need a younger one. You will go to Dresden and spent your money there on becoming a midwife. I will arrange this! If you'll return with the highest marks, we will hire you right away. I'm giving you my word on this. But if you should return with lesser marks, we will not be able to use you. But now, go back home and tell your husband, he should come and see me right away, I'd have to talk with him!"

So it happened. Mother went to Dresden. She returned with the highest marks, and Judge Layritz kept his word; she was hired. During her absence, father did all of the housework together with grandmother. This was a hard time, a time of suffering, for all of us. There was an outbreak of small-pox. All of us children became ill. Grandmother did almost more than was humanly possible; but father did so too. One of the sisters' head had turned into a shapeless lump on account of the small-pox. Forehead, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and chin had entirely disappeared. The physician had to probe for the lips with a knife, in order to feed the sick girl with at least some milk. She is still alive today, the most cheerful one of us all, and has never been sick again. The scars are still visible, which resulted from the physician cutting her, while searching for her mouth.

These hard times were not entirely over yet, when mother returned, but her stay in Dresden brought a big stroke of good fortune for me. By her hard work and her quiet, deeply sincere ways, she had gained the favour of the two professors Grenzer and Haase, and had told them about me, her miserable, blinded, and yet spiritually so lively boy. She had been asked to bring me to Dresden, to be treated by these two physicians. This was now done, and with a quite remarkable success. I learnt to see, and returned home healthily in all other respects as well. But all of this required a large, large sacrifice; of course it was only large in respect to our poor conditions. Because of all of the necessary expenses, we had to sell the house, and the small part of the price we were to keep as our own was hardly sufficient to pay for the most urgent things. We moved to a rented place. -- --

And now, I will turn to that person, who had the most profound and extensive influence on my development in a spiritual respect. While our mother's mother had been born in Hohenstein and was therefore called the "Hohensteiner grandmother" by us, my father's mother was from Ernstthal and therefore had to listen to the name "Ernstthaler grandmother". The latter was an entirely peculiar, inscrutable, noble, and, I might almost say, mysterious character. She was to me, from my early youth on, a cherished, blissful puzzle, from the depth of which I could scoop up wisdom without ever running out of it. Where had she obtained all this from. Very simple: She was a soul, nothing but a soul, and modern psychology knows what this means. She was born in the direst need and had grown up in the direst suffering; therefore, she regarded everything with hoping eyes, yearning for deliverance. And whoever is capable to hope and to believe the right way, has already pushed all the misery of earth aside and will only find sunshine and God's peace ahead. She was the daughter of miserably poor folks, had lost her mother at an early age, and to feed her father, who was neither able to stand nor to lie and was tied and bound to an old leather arm-chair for many years, until he died. She took care of him with an endless self-denial, which would move a person to tears. Poverty allowed her only the cheapest of accommodations. Her chamber's window let her see only the cemetery, nothing else. She knew all of the graves, and thought there would only be one course for herself and her father, to be carried out of their humble dying chamber in a coffin towards the churchyard. She had one lover, who had decent and honest intentions, but she gave him up. She wanted to devote her entire time only to her father, and the good fellow agreed with her. He said nothing, but he waited and remained faithful to her.

Upstairs, in the attic, stood an old chest, containing even older books. This were heirlooms, bound in leather, of various contents, both religious and secular. It was told that there had been clerics, scholars, and travellers in our family, when it had been prosperous, of whom we are reminded up to this day by those books. Father and daughter were able to read, they had both learnt it by themselves. At nightfall, after the strife and work of the day was done, the Reifröckchen [1] was lit, and one of them read to the other. Once in a while, a pause was made to discuss what had been read. Though having read the books almost twenty times already, they started over again and again, because every time, new ideas were found, which seemed to be better, more beautiful and also truer than those from before. Most frequently, a rather large and very worn-out volume was read, the title of which was:

[1] a small oil lamp

The Hakawati
i.e.

the story-teller in Asia, Africa, Turkia, Arabia, Persia, and India, including an appendix with interpretation, explanatio & interpretatio, also many a comparison and images

by
Christianus Kretzschmann
who was from Germania.
Printed by Wilhelmus Candidus
A. D.: M. D. C. V.

*
* *

This book contained a large amount of meaningful, oriental tales, which were not to be found in any previous collection. Grandmother knew all of these tales. Usually, she recited them literally, word by word, but in certain instances, whenever it deemed her necessary, she made alterations or added applications, from which became evident that she knew the spirit of the stories she told very well, and made precise use of its effect. Her favourite tale was the fable of Sitara. Later, it also became my favourite, because it dealt with the geography and ethnology of our earth and its inhabitants from a purely ethical point of view. But let this just be a small indication, here.