Recollections of My Childhood and Youth | Page 7

obliged to walk so slowly with the girl, even though no longer obliged
to take hold of her skirt. How I envied the boys contemptuously called
street boys! They could run in and out of the courtyard, shout and make
as much noise as they liked, quarrel and fight out in the street, and
move about freely. I knew plenty of streets. If sent into the town on an
errand I should be able to find my way quite easily.
And at last I obtained permission. Happy, happy day! I flew off like an
arrow. I could not possibly have walked. And I ran home again at full
galop. From that day forth I always ran when I had to go out alone. Yes,
and I could not understand how grown-up people and other boys could
walk. I tried a few steps to see, but impatience got the better of me and
off I flew. It was fine fun to run till you positively felt the hurry you
were in, because you hit your back with your heels at every step.
My father, though, could run very much faster. It was impossible to
compete with him on the grass. But it was astonishing how slow old
people were. Some of them could not run up a hill and called it trying
to climb stairs.
IX.
On the whole, the world was friendly. It chiefly depended on whether
one were good or not. If not, Karoline was especially prone to complain
and Father and Mother were transformed into angry powers. Father was,
of course, a much more serious power than Mother, a more distant,
more hard-handed power. Neither of them, in an ordinary way, inspired
any terror. They were in the main protecting powers.
The terrifying power at this first stage was supplied by the bogey-man.
He came rushing suddenly out of a corner with a towel in front of his
face and said: "Bo!" and you jumped. If the towel were taken away
there soon emerged a laughing face from behind it. That at once made
the bogey-man less terrible. And perhaps that was the reason Maren's
threat: "Now, if you are not good, the bogey-man will come and take
you," quickly lost its effect. And yet it was out of this same bogey-man,
so cold-bloodedly shaken off, that at a later stage a personality with
whom there was no jesting developed, one who was not to be thrust
aside in the same way, a personality for whom you felt both fear and
trembling-- the Devil himself.

But it was only later that he revealed himself to my ken. It was not he
who succeeded first to the bogey-man. It was--the police. The police
was the strange and dreadful power from which there was no refuge for
a little boy. The police came and took him away from his parents, away
from the nursery and the drawing-room, and put him in prison.
In the street the police wore a blue coat and had a large cane in his hand.
Woe to the one who made the acquaintance of that cane!
My maternal grandfather was having his warehouse done up, a large
warehouse, three stories high. Through doors at the top, just under the
gable in the middle, there issued a crane, and from it hung down a
tremendously thick rope at the end of which was a strong iron hook. By
means of it the large barrels of sky-blue indigo, which were brought on
waggons, were hoisted. Inside the warehouse the ropes passed through
every storey, through holes in the floors. If you pulled from the inside
at the one or the other of the ropes, the rope outside with the iron crook
went up or down.
In the warehouse you found Jens; he was a big, strong, taciturn,
majestic man with a red nose and a little pipe in his mouth, and his
fingers were always blue from the indigo. If you had made sure of Jens'
good-will, you could play in the warehouse for hours at a time, roll the
empty barrels about, and--which was the greatest treat of all--pull the
ropes. This last was a delight that kept all one's faculties at extreme
tension. The marvellous thing about it was that you yourself stood
inside the house and pulled, and yet at the same time you could watch
through the open doors in the wall how the rope outside went up or
down. How it came about was an enigma. But you had the refreshing
consciousness of having accomplished something--saw the results of
your efforts before your eyes.
Nor could I resist the temptation of pulling the ropes when Jens was out
and the warehouse empty. My little brother had whooping cough, so I
could not live at