Memories | Page 2

FIRST MEMORY.
Childhood has its secrets and its mysteries; but who can tell or who can
explain them! We have all roamed through this silent
wonder-wood--we have all once opened our eyes in blissful
astonishment, as the beautiful reality of life overflowed our souls. We

knew not where, or who, we were--the whole world was ours and we
were the whole world's. That was an infinite life--without beginning
and without end, without rest and without pain. In the heart, it was as
clear as the spring heavens, fresh as the violet's perfume--hushed and
holy as a Sabbath morning.
What disturbs this God's-peace of the child? How can this unconscious
and innocent existence ever cease? What dissipates the rapture of this
individuality and universality, and suddenly leaves us solitary and
alone in a clouded life?
Say not, with serious face. It is sin! Can even a child sin? Say rather,
we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.
Is it sin, which makes the bud a blossom, and the blossom fruit, and the
fruit dust?
Is it sin, which makes the worm a chrysalis, and the chrysalis a
butterfly, and the butterfly dust?
And is it sin, which makes the child a man, and the man a gray-haired
man, and the gray-haired man dust? And what is dust?
Say rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.
Yet it is so beautiful, recalling the spring-time of life, to look back and
remember one's self. Yes, even in the sultry summer, in the melancholy
autumn and in the cold winter of life, there is here and there a spring
day, and the heart says: "I feel like spring." Such a day is this--and so I
lay me down upon the soft moss of the fragrant woods, and stretch out
my weary limbs, and look up, through the green foliage, into the
boundless blue, and think how it used to be in that childhood.
Then, all seems forgotten. The first pages of memory are like the old
family Bible. The first leaves are wholly faded and somewhat soiled
with handling. But, when we turn further, and come to the chapters
where Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise, then, all begins to
grow clear and legible. Now if we could only find the title-page with
the imprint and date--but that is irrevocably lost, and, in their place, we
find only the clear transcript--our baptismal certificate--bearing witness
when we were born, the names of our parents and godparents, and that
we were not issued sine loco et anno.
But, oh this beginning! Would there were none, since, with the
beginning, all thought and memories alike cease. When we thus dream
back into childhood, and from childhood into infinity, this bad

beginning continually flies further away. The thoughts pursue it and
never overtake it; just as a child seeks the spot where the blue sky
touches the earth, and runs and runs, while the sky always runs before it,
yet still touches the earth--but the child grows weary and never reaches
the spot.
But even since we were once there--wherever it may be, where we had
a beginning, what do we know now? For memory shakes itself like the
spaniel, just come out of the waves, while the water runs in, his eyes
and he looks very strangely.
I believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first time.
They may have seen me often before, but one evening it seemed as if it
were cold. Although I lay in my mother's lap, I shivered and was chilly,
or I was frightened. In short, something came over me which reminded
me of my little Ego in no ordinary manner. Then my mother showed
me the bright stars, and I wondered at them, and thought that she had
made them very beautifully. Then I felt warm again, and could sleep
well.
Furthermore, I remember how I once lay in the grass and everything
about me tossed and nodded, hummed and buzzed. Then there came a
great swarm of little, myriad-footed, winged creatures, which lit upon
my forehead and eyes and said, "Good day." Immediately my eyes
smarted, and I cried to my mother, and she said: "Poor little one, how
the gnats have stung him!" I could not open my eyes or see the blue sky
any longer, but my mother had a bunch of fresh violets in her hand, and
it seemed as if a dark-blue, fresh, spicy perfume were wafted through
my senses. Even now, whenever I see the first violets, I remember this,
and it seems to me that I must close my eyes so that the old dark-blue
heaven of that day may again rise over my soul.
Still further do I remember,