paper underneath. One sits there as if in a well-corked bottle, full of warm
air; still, as I have said, it was also cozy at my place, while outside the wind
was whistling.
Aunty talked and reminisced; she recalled the days of her youth; the
brewer came back; many old memories were revived.
She could remember the time I got my first tooth, and the family's delight
over it. My first tooth! The tooth of innocence, shining like a little drop of
milk - the milk tooth!
When one had come, several more came, a whole rank of them, side by
side, appearing both above and below - the finest of children's teeth, though
these were only the “vanguard,” not the real teeth, which have to last one's
whole lifetime.
Then those also appeared, and the wisdom teeth as well, the flank men of
each rank, born in pain and great tribulation.
They disappear, too, sometimes every one of them; they disappear before
their time of service is up, and when the very last one goes, that is far from
a happy day; it is a day for mourning. And so then one considers himself
old, even if he feels young.
Such thoughts and talk are not pleasant. Yet we came to talk about all
this; we went back to the days of my childhood and talked and talked. It
was twelve o'clock before Aunty went to rest in the room near by.
“Good night, my sweet child,” she called. “I shall now sleep as if I were
in my own bed.”
And she slept peacefully; but otherwise there was no peace either in the
house or outside. The storm rattled the windows, struck the long, dangling
iron hooks against the house, and rang the neighbor's back-yard bell. The
lodger upstairs had come home. He was still taking his little nightly tour up
and down the room; he then kicked off his boots and went to bed and to
sleep; but he snores so that anyone with good ears can hear him through the
ceiling.
