not seeing them in their accustomed corners. These figures also become alive in my thoughts, in the streets where they once walked and which I now walk without meeting them.
But most clearly of all, I see the old maid, who taught the infant boys of the better-class families in the old town. The dear fat old thing, with whom the mothers could so confidently leave their babes, for she did not treat them so much in the usual school-mistress way, but more like a nurse or a favourite aunt. It was she, who with her chubby fingers, assisted us in pulling out our baby teeth, when they began to fall. It was to her we were sent on the days when the storks brought their wonderful presents, or when other disturbing family affairs occurred which made it necessary for us to be got rid of. She gave us our first theatre tickets, and when we paid our four marks on the first of each month, she would return the two to those whose parents were not very well off, so that they could buy themselves something useful. It was she also who, on Shrove Tuesday, stayed late in bed, that we boys could have the pleasure of whipping her up in true Shrove-tide fashion, and be rewarded with one of the buns, of which she kept for that night an enormous basketful under her bed.
You dear good old woman, in your warm heart beat all the old town's innocent simplicity. I build this little monument in your honour, a monument we boys too long have owed you.
