Otakar Theer

“ Imagine my father’s happiness, sir! He was of humble birth. Through a happy combination of circumstances he had been able to take his degree at a university, and to marry a comparatively rich wife. Being an ambitious man, he looked upon every member of his family as a means to attain the social success for which he was longing. ”

“ I could have beaten my father and mother who had made me a cripple at birth.
Work seemed to me more useless than ever. I argued that if my parents were responsible for my being born a cripple, it was also their duty to make up to me for the happiness which had slipped through my fingers. I was quite clear on this point, that they were under obligation to me, not I to them.
But far from honouring these obligations, my father apprenticed me to a bricklayer, after I had firmly refused to re-enter the torture-chamber of the school. ”

“ The masters, who were apt to take for granted that a pupil from the provinces must be badly taught, worried me like devils. They treated me as though I were either an idiot, or else a dangerous ne’er-do-weel. Far from being a favourite myself, I saw others being favoured. I once ventured to give my opinion on this point to our Latin professor, a dried-up little man with a badger’s face, who enjoyed nothing more than giving bad marks.
From that day onward school-life became a torture-chamber, with the masters as executioners. I became neurotic ”