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Johanna Trosiener, the Daughter of a Danzig Merchant and Mother of Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and Writer Luise Adelaide Lavinia Schopenhauer, Reflects on her Childhood and Youth in the 1770s (Retrospective Account)

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[ . . . ]

About that morning that had put me to flight I only know that the Candidate had wanted to embrace and pull me toward him, he, who had never even touched my hand! At the same time, he had called out, “Would you not become my dear little wife!” But that was enough, more than enough to drive me, as if flying on the wings of a storm, down the two great flights of stairs toward my mother’s protection. [ . . . ]

On top of that, I felt as if my teacher had committed an enormous crime; my earlier love for him had disappeared, and I was terrified of the thought of having to see him again, and yet I cried with grief about having lost him in this way.

As a very sensible woman, however, my mother succeeded, without any ado at all, in bringing both the Candidate and me to our senses. Making his wrongdoing and his hardly excusable rashness clear to Kuschel was probably not very difficult for her; [ . . . ]

Whether my father ever learned of this tragic-comical aberration of good Kuschel, I do not know; the incident was never mentioned in my presence, which indisputably was the most reasonable thing to do. Both regarding the rest of his relations with our family, too, and the conduct of my parents toward him, not the slightest change became noticeable, which seemed to contribute substantially to his reassurance.

Thus, the incident, at bottom quite trivial, was shrugged off, and it fell into oblivion, but for me it nevertheless had the serious consequence that contrary to the prevailing tradition, I advanced to Confirmation two years earlier than was the case usually. Due to the excellent instruction with which fortune had provided me, the material I had learned had rushed, as it were, ahead of my years. In many respects, however, I nevertheless remained a rather childish child both in terms of age and in terms of reason, while I was pushed into the ranks of grown-ups unreasonably early.

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