MihaElla ’s Reviews > Scrisoare către tata > Status Update

Neither of the girls disappointed me,only I disappointed both of them.My opinion of them is today exactly the same when I wanted to marry them.It is not true either that in my 2nd marriage attempt I disregarded the experiences gained from the 1st attempt,that I was rash & careless.The cases were quite different;precisely the earlier experience held out a hope for the 2nd case,which was altogether much more promising

Marrying, founding a family, accepting all the children that come, supporting them in this insecure world and perhaps guiding them a little, is, I am convinced, the utmost a human being can succeed in doing at all. That so many seem to succeed in this is no evidence to the contrary; first of all, there are not many who do succeed, and secondly, these not-many usually don't "do" it, it merely "happens" to them

As a child I was, in your view, always studying, and later always writing. This does not even remotely correspond to the facts. It would be more correct, and much less exaggerated, to say that I studied little and learnt nothing; that something did stick in my mind after those many years is, after all, not very remarkable, since I did have a moderately good memory and a not too inferior capacity for learning;

You have a particularly beautiful, very rare way of quietly, contentedly, approvingly smiling, a way of smiling that can make the person for whom it is meant entirely happy. I can't recall its ever having expressly been my lot in my childhood, but I dare say it may have happened, for why should you have refused it to me at a time when I still seemed blameless to you and was your great hope?

I was lost confidence in my own actions. I was wavering, doubtful. The older I became, the more material there was for you to bring up against me as evidence of my worthlessness; gradually you began really to be right in a certain respect. Once again, I am careful not to assert that I became like this solely through you; you only intensified what was already there...

The impossibility of getting on calmly together had one more result,actually a very natural one:I lost the capacity to talk.I dare say I would not have become a very eloquent person in any case,but I would,after all,have acquired the usual fluency of human language.But at a very early stage you forbade me to speak.Your threat,'Not a word of contradiction!' & the raised hand accompanied it have been with me ever since

I was continually in disgrace; either I obeyed your orders, and that was a disgrace, for they applied, after all, only to me; or I was defiant, and that was a disgrace too, for how could I presume to defy you; or I could not obey because I did not, for instance, have your strength, your appetite, your skill, although you expected it of me as a matter of course; this was the greatest disgrace of all.

Courage, resolution, confidence, delight in this and that, could not last when you were against it or even if your opposition was merely to be assumed; and it was to be assumed in almost everything I did.

...I dare say I was quite obedient afterwards at that period (*early years), but it did me inner harm... [...] Even years afterwards I suffered from the tormenting fancy that the huge man, my father, the ultimate authority, would come almost for no reason at all and take me out of bed in the night and carry me out onto the pavlatche, and that meant I was a mere nothing for him.