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42 BIOGRAPHY.
in a corner of a sofa, and my father beside a table in the
centre of the room, reading aloud until supper-time at nine
o’clock. My father, who was only interested in classical
literature, chose in preference historical works, which were
rather tiresome for his young daughters to listen to, espe-
cially as they were written in German and in English, my
father’s favorite languages, which he read beautifully, but
which we did not then understand well enough to follow
when he was reading aloud.
After the first ten minutes, my mother fell asleep, and
we were often ready to follow her example. Fredrika
yawned till the tears rolled down her cheeks; and if my
brother’s tutor, the good Mr. R——, had not hit upon sev-
eral tricks to keep us awake, I do not know how we should
have fared. But sometimes we were on the point of being
found out; for instance, when we were seized with an irre-
sistible youthful desire to laugh, which fortunately my father
did not notice, as we were sitting far away from him. Once,
however, while we were nodding, half asleeep, Mr. R——
happened to strike his hand so loudly upon the table that my
father looked up and said, “ What was that?” “It was —
it was” — answered Fredrika, quite frightened, “ the table
that was going to jump.” My father looked displeased,
but said nothing more, and continued after a time his read-
ing. In this manner we labored through Schiller’s: “ Thirty
Years’ War,” Gibbon’s “ Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire,” and Robertson’s “ History of America,” the two
last in English.
After supper we all went into my father’s library to con-
verse until ten o’clock. When we came back to our own
room Fredrika often sat down to cry, and, dejected as we
were ourselves, neither Hedda nor I could offer her any
consolation.
The monotonous, joyless, and inactive life which we led
was felt by us all, but especially by Fredrika. One year was
exactly like the other. We had certainly occupation; we
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