This was the very simple and natural consequence of me having to translate, after I had become seeing, the world of my soul, generated by the Hakawati in me, into the visible world of colours, shapes, bodies, and surfaces. By this, innumerable variations and multiplications were created, which I could only put into a fixed shape and form by telling them. By this time, father had managed to get me the permission to attend school. Normally this permission was only granted after the age of six; but my mother was, in her capacity as a midwife, in frequent contact with the minister, who enjoyed granting her this wish, since he also served as the local school inspector, and father met the elementary school teacher Schulze twice a week to play skat or schafkopf [a], and therefore it did not turn out to be difficult to obtain his permission as well. I learnt to read and write very quickly, because father and grandmother helped with it, and then, once I could do this, father thought the time had come to start carrying out the plans he had for me. He wanted to fulfil in me what was not fulfilled in him. At the forester's house, he had been granted a glimpse at better and more humane conditions. And he was always haunted by the idea that there had been important men among out ancestors, about whom we, their descendants, had to say that we were not worthy of them. He wanted to live up to their example, but was violently pushed down by the circumstances. This offended and annoyed him. For himself, he had settled with these circumstances. He had to remain what he was: a poor, uneducated craftsman. But now, he transfered all of his wishes, hopes, and everything else onto me. And he was resolved to do everything possible and not to miss any opportunity to turn me into the man he had been denied to become. This can surely only be regarded as a commendable act of his. But the important thing was what path and manner he gave to my education. He wanted whatever was good and beneficent to me. He could only achieve this with good and beneficent means. But unfortunately, I have to say, without telling too much about future events, that my "childhood" came to an end now, at the age of five. It died in the very moment when I opened my eyes to see. What those poor eyes got to see from then on up to today, was nothing but work and work again, worry and worry again, suffering and suffering again, up to my present agony, like being tied to a stake and being incessantly tortured without any end being in sight. - - - [a] Skat, Schafkopf: Two popular games of cards. The word "Skat" is derived from the Italian "scarto" (discarding cards), and "Schafkopf" means literally "sheep's head". III. No Boyhood