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white boxes, on the white window-sills, and even with a pin on the polished wood of the piano. All these efforts I proudly signed.

I am not inclined to believe that my disobedience was inspired by a spirit of rebellion. I was far too young and friendless. Rather, I think that my desire to draw, stimulated by opposition, was stronger than any fear of punishment. In the long run, however, sufficient chastisement was meted out to discourage any further efforts when my mother was about. I soon understood that she was hostile to the slightest show of intelligence, and even more so to any display of personal talent. Later, whenever I sketched, it was on the sly. Pencils and pads were quickly hidden when the jingling of my mother's chatelaine warned me of her approach.

It was about this time that my mother began to make use of me in various ways. At all times she derived great relief from having the soles of her feet tickled. It calmed her nerves and helped her to sleep. But the tickler had a most irksome and tiring occupation. As I was small and unable to protest, I came in for more than my just share of this task. My gaoler seldom slept soundly, so I, not daring to stop, would go on tickling until, in spite of all my efforts, I fell asleep. On awakening I would be surprised to find myself still there and the day already far advanced. 

Whether my mother, from the depths of her mad egotism, realized the life she forced others to live, I cannot say. Yet it is to her credit that, although she caused unhappiness to those around her, she herself derived scant pleasure from the mere process of living. When I was a child she possessed beauty, fortune, freedom, and had the choice of whatever worldly position she might have desired. But I am convinced that had it been possible to take my brother away with her, she would gladly have left this world for some other of her own imagining.