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"Well, you will be our daughter!" And they all loved Desiderius so. "What a handsome man he has grown," complimented Grandmother Fromm. "What a good fellow!" remarked Mother Fromm. "What a clever fellow! How learned!" was Father Fromm's encomium. "And what a muscular rascal!" said Henrik, overcome with astonishment that another boy too had grown as large as he.
Mr. Fromm made room for grandmother and Lorand to pass before him up a narrow stone staircase, while he kept his hand continuously on my head, as if that were the part of me by which he could best hold me. "Veni puer. Hic puer secundus, filius meus." So there was a boy in the house, a new terror for me. "Est studiosus." What, that boy! That was good news: we could go to school together.
There are his childhood's toys piled up; he would love to sit down once more among them, and play with them: there are the books that delighted his childhood's days; he would love to read them anew, and learn again what he had long forgotten, what was in those days such great knowledge. Lorand spent a happy week at home, in the course of which Mrs. Fromm took Fanny back to Pressburg.
Fanny again whispered something in mother's ear, at which mother rose, and seemed quite herself again: she approached Mrs. Fromm resolutely, with no faltering steps, and grasping both her hands, said, "I thank you," and once again repeated whisperingly, "I thank you." All this I regarded speechlessly from a corner. I feared my mother's gaze inexpressibly. Then grandmother interrupted,
He would not have surrendered that stick for a whole Mecklenburg full of every kind of cane. Old Grandmother Fromm, too, was still alive and counted it a great triumph that she had just finished the hundredth pair of stockings for Fanny's trousseau. And last, but not least, Fanny, even more beautiful, even more amiable! as if she had not seen Desiderius and his grandmother for an eternity!
First of all came Mother Fromm, to beg me very kindly to say that one word that would cure my mother at once; then came Grandmother Fromm with awful threats: then Father Fromm, who endeavored to persuade me with sage reasoning, declaring that my honor would really be greatest if I should now break my word! It was all quite useless.
That name "Henrik" often struck my ear. Father Fromm was called Henrik, but he himself uttered the name: that therefore could not be other than his son.
You knowe, my deare, I never colde abyde fyssche being colde clammy cretures, and loe onlye last nyghte this Monster dyd come to my beddside where I laye asleepyng and wake me fromm a sweet drowse by dangling a string of loathsome queasy trouts, still dryppinge, against my nose. Lo, says he, are these not beuties? And his reek of barley wine did fille the chamber.
My brother, who was already too old to be exchanged, went to the home of a Privy Councillor, who was paid for taking him in, and my place was to be taken by a still younger child than myself, by a little German girl, Fanny, the daughter of Henry Fromm, baker.
Every moment I expected that little demoniacal curiosity to point to me with that never-resting hand of hers, and proclaim: "there in the new child's pocket is the cake." She was already by my side, and I saw that father, mother and Grandmother Fromm turned to me all with inquiring looks, and addressed some terrible "interpellatio" to me, which I did not understand, but could suspect what it was.
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