It was the home of my fathers,
the home that would have been mine if I had been a boy,
the home that was mine now by a thousand tender and happy
and miserable associations, of which the people in possession
could not dream. They were tenants, but it was my home.
I threw my arms round the trunk of a very wet fir tree,
every branch of which I remembered, for had I not climbed it,
and fallen from it, and torn and bruised myself on it uncountable
numbers of times? and I gave it such a hearty kiss that my nose
and chin were smudged into one green stain, and still I did not care.
Far from caring, it filled me with a reckless, Backfisch pleasure
in being dirty, a delicious feeling that I had not had for years.
Alice in Wonderland, after she had drunk the contents of
the magic bottle, could not have grown smaller more suddenly
than I grew younger the moment I passed through that magic door.
Bad habits cling to us, however, with such persistency that I
did mechanically pull out my handkerchief and begin to rub
off the welcoming smudge, a thing I never would have dreamed
of doing in the glorious old days; but an artful scent of
violets clinging to the handkerchief brought me to my senses,
and with a sudden impulse of scorn, the fine scorn for scent
of every honest Backfisch, I rolled it up into a ball and flung
it away into the bushes, where I daresay it is at this moment.
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