C1 Grudge and beating

"Get up!", his aggressive voice was right in front of my door, an energetic hammering against its wood announced a new, nightmarish day for me and at the same time meant the end of a wonderful dream.

"You lazy girl, get up!"

"I'm already awake, Father“, I assured him and tried to sound confident.

"Get dressed and then go downstairs and help your mother in the kitchen." The aggression in the core of his voice was clearly audible.

"All right." I took the candle on my bedside table and held it in the room. Through the crack at the bottom of my window I saw that it was still dark outside. In this better broom closet, which I called my room, there was a small table next to my bed, which by now was much too small for me, on which there were a washbowl and a battered mirror. Every evening before I went to bed, I fetched a jug of clear water from the well behind our house, so that it was ready for the next day. I sat down on the stool in front of the mirror and examined my face. My brunette hair, which hung down to below my shoulder blades, was still a little confused from sleep. I quickly pulled my homemade comb made of fish bones through it. The cool water on my skin dispelled even the last tiredness, my jade-green eyes had opened to full moons. I stuffed my nightgown under my pillow, briefly shook the sheet and put on my dress with the apron. Countless times I had already mended it, which is why it seemed to be very worn out by now. My parents did not allow me to have more than this chamber and worn-out clothes. Before I finally left the room, I tied my hair into a tight knot. Before I could even descend two steps, a forceful clearing of his throat reached me.

"Haven't you forgotten something?", asked father.

I quickly turned around again; it was my morning duty to collect the chamber pots from my parents' and my brothers' rooms and empty them. At this point the test began anew for me every morning, because my brothers were still sleeping at times and I was not allowed to wake them, otherwise it wouldn't bode well for me. Father thought that Thomas and Gabriel had earned their extra sleep, after all, they worked hard, only I knew that this wasn't the case. The lion’s share of the work was done by me and my mother. As inconspicuously as possible, I crept into my brothers' room, so far I had still managed not to wake them up. Their snoring told me that they were still in the land of dreams, the place where I too could be free. The wooden floorboard creaked, every further step could betray me. I had Thomas' chamber pot before, but as I moved towards Gabriel's bed, the wooden floor cracked treacherously, Gabriel startled up briefly before he started snoring again. I breathed a sigh of relief as I got out of here and finished my task. Closing the door behind me, I ran down again with the pots.

"I really don't know what else to do with this girl, Margret."

Father's voice was a harbinger of my fate today. The door to the kitchen was open, I put the chamber pots on the floor, then I entered.

"Ah, here we are, at last, Miss Vanity, what took you so long?"

"It is not always easy, Father, to collect Thomas' and Gabriel's night dishes without waking them up“, I defended myself.

"Oh, so now the boys are to blame for your failures?"

"I didn't fail, none of them woke up."

"Good, I would have advised you to do the same“, his cold eyes burned on my skin, "and now help your mother."

Immediately mother placed a large bucket of field crops on the sideboard for me to peel and clean, without looking me in the eye or even giving me a friendly 'Good morning'. A bowl of tasteless oatmeal would only be available to me after the work was done. Outside it was already dawning, I could see that through the window behind the sideboard. The months from April to September always meant a lot of work for simple country folk like my family. The cows had to be driven out to graze, cultivated fields had to be harvested, the fruit had to be shaken from the trees and wood had to be split for the winter. While I thought lost in thought about these sweaty activities, which I was tired of doing but which I couldn't avoid, I noticed a shadow in the rising dawn. Something was moving outside, too big for a bird and too compact for a possibly escaped animal. The shadow moved light-footed and elegantly across our yard, but I didn't see anyone it could have come from. Distracted by this, I accidentally cut my finger. Immediately blood flowed from the cut.

"You clumsy thing", scolded mother, "how can you be of any use to me in the kitchen if you keep hurting yourself?"

"I'm sorry", I said, still thinking about the shadow.

"'Yes, yes, don't squirm out of it", mother threw a cloth at me, "dry the wound and then see that you get ready, after all, we don't have all day."

Just the door to the kitchen opened, Thomas and Gabriel had finally got up.

"Ah, here are my two magnificent boys", father's gold pieces had both shadows under their eyes, surely he would attribute this to me. It couldn't have come from too much work and overexertion, after all, the two of them always picked the cherries from the work, they left the dirty work to me. Thomas noticed my hand in the cloth, he looked at me with his pale blue eyes.

"Once again, typical Emily, cutting her finger before the day's business started."

"Well, she's never really done her job", scoffed Gabriel, whose raven-black hair hung down in his forehead, "out in the hall are still our piss pots."

"Pardon?" Father rose threateningly, his coldhearted look caught me. Fear crept up my nerves, I was afraid of his hand.

"Father, please, I only put it down outside, I'll empty it later."

"Later! Later?", he rolled towards me like a massive mountain, the chair he had been sitting on tipped over, "no, you lazy harlot, you do it right away." His coarse hand went into my neck, grabbed me and hurled me out of the kitchen, into the hall. I had known that this day too would become a punishment for me. Taking the chamber pots, I disappeared outside and wished I had never been born.