Baron von Schoenau My encounter with the Baron von Schoenau, a German captain, was an accident.
Sometimes I would go with mother to her work and remain outside playing. I was there on the day when the baron came to the dairy Fabrik on an inspection tour. Days later, he sent a message to mother asking if she would permit me to sit for him. He was a painter, he said, and would like to have me as a model. Mother replied that she could not leave her work so perhaps he could arrange to come to the village. He replied that this was not satisfactory to him and he proposed to send a carriage for me once a week and to send me back the same way.
At first mother arranged for one of the older girls to accompany me but later I went by myself. I would sit in the buggy driven by a soldier, feeling like an important personage. My feet did not reach the floor and I would hold on with both hands on each side of the carriage. The baron lived in a fine manor-house that was located in the woods. It was beautifully furnished with thick, soft carpets that I was scared to walk on. He was a lean, tall man and spoke very softly. Even when he talked to his housekeeper he was very polite. However, he never addressed a word to me and I never talked to him. What could I have said?
As soon as I would arrive he would sit me down in a particular chair, in a particular position, and begin to sketch. When he sensed that I was getting tired, he would call his housekeeper in and she would conduct me into another room and give me a piece of cake with something sweet to drink. She would ask me if I wanted to go to the bathroom, which I never would do no matter how urgently I needed to. The she would lead me back to the same chair and he would start sketching me again. Weeks later, I saw the sketch I didn't like it. It did not look like me!
In the end the baron had to leave our village suddenly but before going he sent a note to my mother with a photo of himself on horseback.
Baron von Schoenau, the German captain, who did my portrait -- which I did not care for.
He thanked mother for permitting him to sketch me. Nothing more. Yet people thought that mother had been deriving material benefits from this contact. But mother never asked for and the baron never offered anything.
