My imagination is free; the frightful impression carries me far back to a time shrouded in dimness which resembles my childhood days.
A mere baby still. At night caressing hands tucked me in bed. I held up my forehead for the kisses of a fairy....
A little girl who ran and fell and hurt her forehead and palms and flew with her troubles to the living Providence. "Did you hurt yourself?... Ah, you're bleeding!" I felt the thrill of the miraculous wound because she caught me in her arms and pressed my undeserved suffering to her heart. Then she tended me, oh, so gently. When she finished, I secretly regretted that the hurt was assuaged and I had no more blood to offer, red flowing blood, in exchange for the doting tenderness that it brought raining down upon me.
A long illness. A veritable angel hovering all the time. Clouds in my room, clouds on my bed, and a constant buzzing in my ears. When the angel moved, a current of freshness reached me, a magnificent hand raised the head which weighed like a ball of fire, and the heavenly voice said in the tone of ordinary mothers: "Drink, darling!"
When my memory brings me up to the moments of effort, the real moments which count, I find myself an orphan.
No, you were not there, mother, when my inner life developed, nor the first morning when I saw clearly, nor when my love came. You were never with me at any time when my good will acted, never, never. It was you who stayed behind and left me. I went on my way. Should I have stopped to stay behind with you?
You idolized my littleness, my tears, my naughtinesses. You covered them all up, I know. But one can't keep on being ill, or naughty, or a little tot.
You are the mother, you pardon everything. When father scolded us, you came with a kiss to absolve us in secret, and sometimes, gritting your teeth and darting the defiance of a she-wolf from your eyes, you'd say: "I would forgive you all your faults. I would say you are right when you are wrong."