But even since we were once there--wherever it may be, where we had a
beginning, what do we know now? For memory shakes itself like the
spaniel, just come out of the waves, while the water runs in, his eyes
and he looks very strangely.

I believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first
time. They may have seen me often before, but one evening it seemed as
if it were cold. Although I lay in my mother's lap, I shivered and was
chilly, or I was frightened. In short, something came over me which
reminded me of my little Ego in no ordinary manner. Then my mother
showed me the bright stars, and I wondered at them, and thought that
she had made them very beautifully. Then I felt warm again, and could
sleep well.

Furthermore, I remember how I once lay in the grass and everything
about me tossed and nodded, hummed and buzzed. Then there came a great
swarm of little, myriad-footed, winged creatures, which lit upon my
forehead and eyes and said, "Good day." Immediately my eyes smarted,
and I cried to my mother, and she said: "Poor little one, how the gnats
have stung him!" I could not open my eyes or see the blue sky any
longer, but my mother had a bunch of fresh violets in her hand, and it
seemed as if a dark-blue, fresh, spicy perfume were wafted through my
senses. Even now, whenever I see the first violets, I remember this,
and it seems to me that I must close my eyes so that the old dark-blue
heaven of that day may again rise over my soul.

Still further do I remember, how, at another time, a new world
disclosed itself to me--more beautiful than the star-world or the
violet perfume. It was on an Easter morning, and my mother had dressed