Rasmussen?”
Aunty was quite overwhelmed by my imagination, and said, “That child
will become a great poet!” And this she kept repeating all the time I went to
school, and even after my confirmation and, yes, still does now that I am a
student.
She was, and is, to me the most sympathetic of friends, both in my
poetical troubles and dental troubles, for I have attacks of both.
“Just write down all your thoughts,” she said, “and put them in the table
drawer! That's what Jean Paul did; he became a great poet, though I don't
admire him; he does not excite one. You must be exciting! Yes, you will be
exciting!”
The night after she said this, I lay awake, full of longings and anguish,
with anxiety and fond hopes to become the great poet that Aunty saw and
perceived in me; I went through all the pains of a poet! But there is an even
greater pain - toothache - and it was grinding and crushing me; I became a
writhing worm, with a bag of herbs and a mustard plaster.
“I know all about it, “ said Aunty. There was a sorrowful smile on her
lips, and her white teeth glistened.
But I must begin a new chapter in my own and my aunt's story.
III
I had moved to a new flat and had been living there a month. I was telling
Aunty about it.
“ I live with a quiet family; they pay no attention to me, even if I ring
three times. Besides, it is a noisy house, full of sounds and disturbances
caused by the weather, the wind, and the people. I live just above the street
gate; every carriage that drives out or in makes the pictures on the walls
move about. The gate bangs and shakes the house as if there were an
earthquake. If I am in bed, the shocks go right through all my limbs, but that
is said to be strengthening to the nerves. If the wind blows, and it is always
blowing in this country, the long window hooks outside swing to and fro,
