And after all, it is this first reading of _Don
Quixote_ which has dominated all my subsequent attempts to understand
the book.
But Henrietta had ways that I did not understand in the least; she used
to amuse herself by little machinations, was inventive and intriguing.
One day she demanded that I should play the school children, small,
white-haired boys and girls, all of whom we had long learnt to know, a
downright trick. I was to write a real love-letter to a nine-year-old
little girl named Ingeborg, from an eleven or twelve-year-old boy called
Per, and then Henrietta would sew a fragrant little wreath of flowers
round it. The letter was completed and delivered. But the only result of
it was that next day, as I was walking along the high road with
Henrietta, Per separated himself from his companions, called me a dandy
from Copenhagen, and asked me if I would fight. There was, of course, no
question of drawing back, but I remember very plainly that I was a
little aghast, for he was much taller and broader than I, and I had,
into the bargain, a very bad cause to defend. But we had hardly
exchanged the first tentative blows before I felt overwhelmingly
superior. The poor cub! He had not the slightest notion how to fight.
From my everyday school life in Copenhagen, I knew hundreds of tricks
and feints that he had never learnt, and as soon as I perceived this I
flung him into the ditch like a glove.
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