Читать книгу The Autobiography of Wilhelm Stekel - The Life Story of a Pioneer Psychoanalyst - Wilhelm Stekel - Страница 13

Now the situation became serious. My parents decided I was a good-for-nothing. I would never be a good student. I was in the first grade of the high school, and at the bottom of my class. So my father said to my mother, “Let him become a shoemaker.” They decided to send me to a shoemaker as an apprentice. I was very happy at this decision. Not to go to school any more! Not to be compelled to learn Latin and mathematics. It sounded like a release from the tortures of hell. Not to be looked upon as if I were a dumbbell. Not to stay a second year in the class! Wasn’t it much better to become a shoemaker?

One day I was taken to the shoemaker, Mueller, and articled to him as an apprentice. The master was a kind and witty man.

This life was to my taste. To loaf around, to listen to the talks of the grownups, to have no school, no coaching, no lessons; it seemed to me like life in a fairy tale. My first disappointment was the so-called “second breakfast” at which each person received a liqueur glass of schnapps and a piece of black bread. I could not stand the schnapps, and the bread was hard and tasted bitter. I hurried home to ask for bread and butter. Mother was not in the kitchen, but I saw a row of warm, fragrant loaves of white bread on the table. Mother had baked them. This was an art of which she was rightly proud. I seized one of the loaves, took it back to my master, and said, “With greetings from my mother! Half of this loaf is for you, half for me.” The master enjoyed it very much and I overcame my first disappointment—and then came another.

There were three of us apprentices at Mueller’s. We ran errands and were supposed to take turns in bringing repaired shoes to their owners. I was told that the apprentice who did this work received a few pennies as a tip. I greedily awaited my turn, but imagine my chagrin when they ignored me and sent another apprentice to deliver the new shoes. The other boy would get the tip I had anticipated receiving. I felt the injustice bitterly and ran away. I told my mother firmly that a hundred wild horses would not drag me back to the shoemaker.

That was the only time I ever received a good hiding from my father. My mother, whose pet child I was in spite of my bad behavior, stopped the hiding. I promised to improve at school. I had to repeat the class I had left. At the end of the school year my marks were above average.

My later school years were negotiated with ease. At the end of three years I had become one of the best pupils. I was fond of my parents, but was not attached to them. I had many playmates and was decidedly extroverted.