nths, from the middle of June on, were often made
especially charming by the numbers of visitors in our home, mostly
young women relatives from Berlin, who were both cheerful and
talkative. The household was then completely changed, for weeks at a
time, and, the hatchet being temporarily buried, merriment and playing
of sly tricks, with occasional boisterous pranks, became the order of
the day. The most brilliant performer in the fun-making competitions
that frequently arose was always my father himself. He was, as
handsome men often are, the absolute opposite of Don Juan, and proud
of his virtue. But by as much as he was unlike Don Juan, he was
charming as a Gascon, when it came to a spirited discussion of pert
and often most daring themes, with young ladies, of whom he made but
one requirement, that they be handsome, otherwise it was not worth his
while. I inherited from him this inclination to enter into subtle
discussions with ladies, in a jesting tone; indeed I have ever carried
this inclination over into my style of writing, and when I read
corresponding scenes in my novels and short stories it once in awhile
seems to me as though I heard my father speaking. Except with this
difference, that I fall far short of his felicitousness, as people who
had known him in his prime often told me, when he was over severity
and I was correspondingly along in years. I have frequently been
addressed in some such way as this: "Now see here, you do very well,
when you have your good days, but you can't compete with your father."
And that was certainly true. His small talk, born of bonhomie and at
the same time enlivened with fantastic lawyerly artifice, was simply
irresistible, even when dealing with business matters, in which as a
rule heartiness has no place. And yet his remarks on money matters had
a lasting effect, so that none of us children ever cherished the
slightest feeling of bitterness on account of his most remarkable
financial operations. My mother, however, was of too different a
nature to be easily converted or carried away by his social graces.
These matters were to her most repugnant when treated lightly and
jestingly. "Whatever is serious is not funny, that's all." But she
never disputed the fact that, as a happy humorist, he always succeeded
in drawing people over to his side, though she never failed to add:
"unfortunately."

And now let us return to the summer visitors in our home. At times it
was rather diffi