n the "lurch" was lacking....

During this time we lived near the Rheinsberg Gate, in a capacious
rented apartment, which included all the rooms on the main floor. So
far as home comforts are concerned, my parents were both very well
satisfied with the change; so were the other children, who found here
ample room for their games; but I could not become reconciled to it,
and have even to this day unpleasant memories of the rented residence.
There was a butcher's shop in the building, and that did not suit my
fancy. Through the long dark court ran a gutter, with blood always
standing in it, while at the end of one of the side wings a beef,
killed the night before, hung on a broad ladder leaning against the
house. Fortunately I never had to witness the preceding scenes, except
when pigs were slaughtered. Then it was sometimes unavoidable. One day
is still fresh in my memory. I was standing in the hall and gazing out
through the open back door into the court, where it just happened that
several persons were down on the ground struggling with a pig that was
squealing its last. I was paralyzed with horror. As soon as I
recovered control of myself I took to my heels, running down the
street, through the town gate, and out to the "Vineyard," a favorite
resort of the Ruppiners. But before I had finally reached that place I
sat down on the top of a hummock to rest and catch my breath. I stayed
away the whole forenoon. At dinner I was called upon to give an
account of myself. "For heaven's sake, boy, where have you been so
long?" I made a clean breast of the matter, saying that I had been put
to flight by the spectacle down in the court and that half way to the
"Vineyard" I had rested on a hummock and leaned my back against a
crumbling pillar. "Why, there you sat in perfect composure on Gallows
Hill," said my father, laughing. Feeling as though the noose were
being laid about my neck, I begged permission to leave the table.

It was also at this time that I entered the primary school, which was
nothing unusual, inasmuch as I was going on seven years of age. I was
quick to learn and made progress, but my mother considered it her duty
to help me on, now and then, especially in reading, and so every
afternoon I stood by her little sewing table and read to her all sorts
of little stories out of the _Brandenburg Children's Friend_, a good
book, but illustrated, alas, with frightful pictures. My performance
was probably quite tolerable,