The Story of My Life from Childhood to Manhood | Page 6

succeeded in renting for a term of
years No. 4 Thiergartenstrasse, which I have already mentioned.
The owner, Frau Kommissionsrath Reichert, had also lost her husband
a short time before, and had determined to let the house, which stood
near her own, stand empty rather than rent it to a large family of
children.
Alone herself, she shrank from the noise of growing boys and girls. But
she had a warm, kind heart, and--she told me this herself--the sight of
the beautiful young mother in her deep mourning made her quickly
forget her prejudice. "If she had brought ten bawlers instead of five,"
she remarked, "I would not have refused the house to that angel face."
We all cherish a kindly memory of the vigorous, alert woman, with her
round, bright countenance and laughing eyes. She soon became very

intimate with my mother, and my second sister, Paula, was her special
favorite, on whom she lavished every indulgence. Her horses were the
first ones on which I was lifted, and she often took us with her in the
carriage or sent us to ride in it.
I still remember distinctly some parts of our garden, especially the
shady avenue leading from our balcony on the ground floor to the
Schafgraben, the pond, the beautiful flower-beds in front of Frau
Reichert's stately house, and the field of potatoes where I--the gardener
was the huntsman--saw my first partridge shot. This was probably on
the very spot where for many years the notes of the organ have pealed
through the Matthaikirche, and the Word of God has been expounded
to a congregation whose residences stand on the playground of my
childhood.
The house which sheltered us was only two stories high, but pretty and
spacious. We needed abundant room, for, besides my mother, the five
children, and the female servants, accommodation was required for the
governess, and a man who held a position midway between porter and
butler and deserved the title of factotum if any one ever did. His name
was Kurschner; he was a big-boned, square-built fellow about thirty
years old, who always wore in his buttonhole the little ribbon of the
order he had gained as a soldier at the siege of Antwerp, and who had
been taken into the house by our mother for our protection, for in
winter our home, surrounded by its spacious grounds, was very lonely.
As for us five children, first came my oldest sister Martha--now, alas!
dead--the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Baron Curt von Brandenstein,
and my brother Martin, who were seven and five years older than I.
They were, of course, treated differently from us younger ones.
Paula was my senior by three years; Ludwig, or Ludo--he was called by
his nickname all his life--by a year and a half.
Paula, a fresh, pretty, bright, daring child, was often the leader in our
games and undertakings. Ludo, who afterward became a soldier and as
a Prussian officer did good service in the war, was a gentle boy,

somewhat delicate in health--the broad-shouldered man shows no trace
of it--and the best of playfellows. We were always together, and were
frequently mistaken for twins. We shared everything, and on my
birthday, gifts were bestowed on him too; on his, upon me.
Each had forgotten the first person singular of the personal pronoun,
and not until comparatively late in life did I learn to use "I" and "me" in
the place of "we" and "us."
The sequence of events in this quiet country home has, of course,
vanished from my mind, and perhaps many which I mention here
occurred in Lennestrasse, where we moved later, but the memories of
the time we spent in the Thiergarten overlooked by our second
home--are among the brightest of my life. How often the lofty trees and
dense shrubbery of our own grounds and the beautiful Berlin
Thiergarten rise before my mental vision, when my thoughts turn
backward and I see merry children playing among them, and hear their
joyous laughter!
FAIRY TALES AND FACT.
What happened in the holy of holies, my mother's chamber, has
remained, down to the smallest details, permanently engraved upon my
soul.
A mother's heart is like the sun--no matter how much light it diffuses,
its warmth and brilliancy never lessen; and though so lavish a flood of
tenderness was poured forth on me, the other children were no losers.
But I was the youngest, the comforter, the nestling; and never was the
fact of so much benefit to me as at that time.
My parents' bed stood in the green room with the bright carpet. It had
been brought from Holland, and was far larger and wider than
bedsteads of the present day. My mother had kept it. A quilted silk
coverlet was spread over it, which