There I see myself standing by the window—five years old—and looking down into the “great square,” where a noisy throng is in wild commotion. A new word strikes upon my ear,—Revolution. Every one is looking out; every one is repeating the new word and is greatly excited. What my sensations were I no longer remember, but at any rate I too was excited, else the picture and the word would not have impressed themselves on my mind. But there is no more to it. The picture does not arouse any comprehension; the word has no meaning. Thus appears my first experience of a historical event. But my memory reaches farther back, and shows me a scene which I was concerned in at the age of three, and which stirred me far more powerfully than the political overturnings of the year 1848. I am about three years old. It is a beautiful afternoon, and my mother and my guardian are planning to take me with them to a picnic in the Schreibwald. The Schreibwald, a favorite place for excursions from Brünn, shines among my memories of childhood as the sum of all natural beauty, festive joy, woodland shade, mountain-climbing, social meals,—in a word, as the acme of that combination of delights known as a picnic. At that date, on the memorable afternoon, all these experiences were doubtless not yet part of my consciousness; perhaps it was the very first time I was to be taken to the Schreibwald; but to me the name was forever afterwards associated with the following event. They dressed me in a white cashmere frock trimmed with narrow red braid. A superb thing—décolleté; I can still see before me the pattern of the braiding, I could draw it on paper. How the onlookers would marvel when they espied that! I felt myself beautiful in it, positively beautiful. And then my guardian, looking out of the window (I can see him too in his general’s uniform), remarked that it was clouding up, it would probably rain. There followed a short session of the cabinet,—the general, my mother, and the chambermaid Babette,—and the decision was announced: the beautiful new frock might suffer harm. “Put an old frock on the countess,” was my mother’s command. But the countess declared most positively that she protested against it. I am in the new frock: _j’y suis, j’y reste_; with this plagiarism thirty years in advance of its original she made known her inflexible will. Perhaps, as a matter of fact, not so much with words as with shrieks and stamping of feet. But consequently the next picture in this indelible picture gallery shows me the brilliantly clad, beautiful, and energetic creature laid on a large table, her face against the table-top, her red-embroidered frock lifted by the obliging hand of the tall army man who stood by; and from the maternal hand, slap, slap, the first whipping, with its burden of despair and dishonor, came down on the object.