Discovering the World

Georg Brandes

1905

XI

There were other inimical forces, too, besides the police and the Enemy, more uncanny and less palpable forces. When I dragged behind the nursemaid who held my younger brother by the hand, sometimes I heard a shout behind me, and if I turned round would see a grinning boy, making faces and shaking his fist at me. For a long time I took no particular notice, but as time went on I heard the shout oftener and asked the maid what it meant. “Oh, nothing!” she replied. But on my repeatedly asking she simply said: “It is a bad word.”

But one day, when I had heard the shout again, I made up my mind that I would know, and when I came home asked my mother: “What does it mean?” “Jew!” said Mother.

“Jews are people.” “Nasty people?” “Yes,” said Mother, smiling, “sometimes very ugly people, but not always.” “Could I see a Jew?” “Yes, very easily,” said Mother, lifting me up quickly in front of the large oval mirror above the sofa.

I uttered a shriek, so that Mother hurriedly put me down again, and my horror was such that she regretted not having prepared me. Later on she occasionally spoke about it.

Translated by
G. M.
Fox-Davies
.

Credits

Georg Brandes, "Discovering the World," from Reminiscences of My Youth and Childhood, trans. Georg Brandes (New York: Duffield and Company, 1906).

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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