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was carefully closed.

We looked imploringly to our mother for bread, but she had nothing to give; we walked on a cold clay floor without shoes and sometimes even without stockings, we complained to our mother with deep sighs, she understood us but was unable to relieve our distress; our many-patched clothes threatened to fall from us, we then placed ourselves before our mamma, she looked at us and spoke through tears.

I have already explained that the monster was absolute; he seemed to think: what use are shoes and clothes, when with juniper twigs for the girl and slender briar rods for the boys I can keep them perfectly warm in the severest cold?

Why foodstuffs?

one can, after all, train oneself to consume poison without ill effect, and likewise people can be trained to live for a longer time without food; and faithful to these principles, he often warmed us, but gave us food very seldom.

One and two days without food was a regular order, but after my siblings had died and I was considered reasonably hardened, I know with complete certainty that on one occasion for two days and nights I tasted no food, and already found myself with one foot on the brink of the grave.

Usually, and after every well-