John's father and mother, with seven children and two servants, occupied three rooms. The furniture mostly consisted of tables and beds. Children lay on the ironing boards and the chairs, children in the cradles and the beds. The father had no room for himself, although he was constantly at home. He never accepted an invitation from his many business friends, because he could not return it. He never went to the restaurant or the theatre. He had a wound which he concealed and wished to heal. His recreation was the piano. One of the nieces came every other evening and then Haydn's symphonies were played à quatre mains, later on Mozart, but never anything modern. Afterwards he had also another recreation as circumstances permitted. He cultivated flowers in window-boxes, but only pelargoniums. Why pelargoniums? When John had grown older and his mother was dead, he fancied he always saw her standing by one. She was pale, she had had twelve confinements and suffered from lung-complaint. Her face was like the transparent white leaves of the pelargonium with its crimson veins, which grow darker towards the pistil, where they seemed to form an almost black eye, like hers.

The father appeared only at meal-times. He was melancholy, weary, strict, serious, but not hard. He seemed severer than he really was, because on his return home he always had to settle a number of things which he could not judge properly. Besides, his name was always used to frighten the children. "I will tell papa that," signified a thrashing. It was not exactly a pleasant rôle which fell to his share. Towards the mother he was always gentle. He kissed her after every meal and thanked her for the food. This accustomed the children, unjustly enough, to regard her as the giver of all that was good, and the father as the dispenser of all that was evil. They feared him. When the cry "Father is coming!" was heard, all the children ran and hid themselves, or rushed to the nursery to be combed and washed. At the table there was deathly silence, and the father spoke only a little.

The mother had a nervous temperament. She used to become easily excited, but soon quieted down again. She was relatively content with her life, for she had risen in the social scale, and had improved her position and that of her mother and brother. She drank her coffee in bed in the mornings, and had her nurses, two servants, and her mother to help her. Probably she did not over-exert herself.

But for the children she played the part of Providence itself. She cut overgrown nails, tied up injured fingers, always comforted, quieted, and soothed when the father punished, although she was the official accuser. The children did not like her when she "sneaked," and she did not win their respect. She could be unjust, violent, and punish unseasonably on the bare accusation of a servant; but the children received food and comfort from her, therefore they loved her. The father, on the other hand, always remained a stranger, and was regarded rather as a foe than a friend.