I should now tell you about the part of my story that affected me most deeply.
What happened during this time changed me forever. Everything I had learned before had prepared me for it, but I was not ready for what I was about to discover.
Spring came quickly.
The weather became warmer, and the skies were often clear and bright.
It amazed me to see how completely the world had changed. Only a short time earlier, the land had looked cold, empty, and lifeless. Now flowers covered the ground, green plants appeared everywhere, and the air was filled with wonderful smells.
Everywhere I looked, there was something beautiful.
One pleasant day, the family took a break from their work.
The old man sat with his guitar while Agatha and Felix listened.
But Felix did not seem happy.
His face was unusually sad, and he sighed again and again.
His father eventually stopped playing.
“What is troubling you, my son?” he seemed to ask.
Felix immediately answered in a cheerful voice.
The old man was about to continue playing when someone knocked on the door.
Everyone looked toward the entrance.
A woman was standing outside.
She had arrived on horseback with a man from the countryside acting as her guide.
She wore dark clothes and a thick black veil covered her face.
Agatha approached her.
The stranger said something in a soft, musical voice.
The only word I could understand was:
“Felix.”
The moment Felix heard his name, he rushed toward the door.
The woman lifted her veil.
I was stunned.
Her face was incredibly beautiful.
She had long, shining black hair, carefully braided, and dark eyes that were both gentle and lively.
Her skin was remarkably pale, with a soft pink color in her cheeks.
Felix stared at her.
Then his sadness completely disappeared.
His face suddenly filled with joy.
His eyes shone, and his cheeks turned red with happiness.
For the first time, I understood how much a person could change simply by seeing someone they loved.
At that moment, I thought Felix looked almost as beautiful as the woman herself.
But she seemed close to tears.
She wiped her eyes and held out her hand.
Felix took it and kissed it excitedly.
“Sweet Safie,” he said.
She did not seem to understand the words, but she smiled at him.
Felix helped her down from the horse.
Then he dismissed her guide and brought her into the cottage.
He spoke briefly with his father.
The young woman then knelt before the old man and tried to kiss his hand.
The old man gently stopped her.
Instead, he pulled her into an affectionate embrace.
I watched everything carefully.
It soon became clear that Safie spoke another language.
She could speak, but the family could not understand her.
And she could not understand them.
They tried to communicate with gestures.
I understood very little of their conversation.
But I understood one thing.
Safie’s arrival had completely changed the atmosphere inside the cottage.
The sadness was gone.
Everyone seemed happy.
Felix was especially joyful.
He could hardly take his eyes off Safie.
Agatha kissed Safie’s hands and then pointed toward Felix.
She seemed to be telling Safie that her brother had been unhappy until she arrived.
Safie smiled.
The three of them continued trying to communicate.
Hours passed.
Then I noticed something important.
Safie kept repeating certain sounds after the others.
She was trying to learn their language.
An idea immediately came to me.
If Safie could learn their language by listening to them, perhaps I could learn it the same way.
I watched her carefully.
During her first lesson, she learned about twenty words.
Many of them were words I already understood.
But she also learned several new ones.
I memorized them too.
That night, Agatha and Safie went to bed early.
Before they separated, Felix kissed Safie’s hand.
“Good night, sweet Safie.”
She smiled at him.
Felix stayed awake much longer, talking with his father.
I heard Safie’s name again and again.
Clearly, they were discussing her.
I desperately wanted to understand what they were saying.
I listened with all my concentration.
But I still could not understand their conversation.
The next morning, Felix left for work.
After Agatha finished her usual chores, Safie sat beside the old man.
She picked up the guitar.
Then she began to play.
The music was so beautiful that tears filled my eyes.
I had never heard anything like it.
When she began to sing, her voice rose and fell like the song of a nightingale.
I listened in complete silence.
When she finished, she handed the guitar to Agatha.
Agatha hesitated.
“No, you play,” she seemed to say.
But Safie encouraged her.
Eventually, Agatha took the instrument.
She played a simple melody and sang along.
Her voice was sweet, but it was nothing like Safie’s extraordinary singing.
The old man looked delighted.
He said something warmly to Agatha.
Agatha then tried to explain his meaning to Safie.
From their gestures, I understood that he was telling Safie how much pleasure her music had given him.
From that day on, the cottage became a happier place.
The sadness that had once filled the family’s faces was gradually replaced by smiles.
Safie was almost always cheerful.
And she and I continued learning the language together.
We progressed quickly.
After about two months, I could understand most of the words spoken by the family.
Meanwhile, spring continued to transform the world.
Green plants covered the dark earth.
Flowers appeared everywhere.
Their colors and scents filled the forest.
The nights became warm and peaceful.
The moonlight made the woods seem magical.
I loved walking through the forest at night.
But I still refused to go outside during the day.
I was terrified that another human being might see me and attack me as the villagers had done before.
So I spent my days studying.
I listened carefully to every conversation.
I repeated words silently to myself.
I wanted to master the language as quickly as possible.
In fact, I learned much faster than Safie.
She still understood only a small part of what the family said and often spoke with a broken accent.
I, however, could understand almost everything.
I could even imitate many of the words I heard.
As my knowledge of spoken language improved, I also began learning how written language worked.
Felix was teaching Safie to read.
I secretly watched their lessons.
The book he used was called The Ruins of Empires.
At first, I understood almost nothing.
But Felix explained the ideas carefully while reading to Safie.
I listened to every word.
The book opened an entirely new world to me.
For the first time, I learned about human history.
I learned that the world contained many different nations and empires.
I learned about their governments, religions, customs, wars, and traditions.
I heard about the ancient peoples of Asia.
I learned about the extraordinary intelligence and achievements of the Greeks.
I heard about the courage and military power of the early Romans.
I also learned that Rome eventually became corrupt and declined.
I learned about kings, Christianity, knights, and the rise and fall of great empires.
Then I heard about the discovery of America.
I learned what had happened to the people who had lived there before Europeans arrived.
Safie was deeply saddened by their fate.
So was I.
The more I learned about humanity, the more confused I became.
How could human beings be so wonderful and so terrible at the same time?
They could be brave, intelligent, generous, and noble.
Yet they could also be cruel, violent, selfish, and hateful.
Sometimes humans seemed almost godlike.
At other times, they seemed worse than animals.
I could not understand why one person would deliberately kill another.
At first, I could not even understand why humans needed laws or governments.
But as I learned more about violence, greed, and injustice, my confusion disappeared.
I began to understand why society needed rules.
And I began to feel disgust toward the darker side of human nature.
Every conversation in the cottage taught me something new.
While Felix taught Safie, I secretly learned alongside her.
I discovered how human society was organized.
I learned that people could own land and property.
I learned that some people were extremely wealthy while others were desperately poor.
I learned about social classes, family names, inherited status, and noble blood.
These lessons forced me to think about myself.
Apparently, the things humans valued most were wealth and respectable family origins.
A person with either one could sometimes earn respect.
But someone without either was usually treated as worthless.
Such a person might be forced to work for the wealthy and powerful simply to survive.
Then I asked myself:
“What am I?”
I knew nothing about my parents.
I knew nothing about my creator.
I had no money.
I had no family.
I had no friends.
I owned nothing.
And I was hideously different from every human being I had ever seen.
I was stronger and more agile than they were.
I could survive on rougher food.
Extreme heat and cold affected me less than they affected humans.
I was much taller than them.
But I had never seen anyone who looked like me.
No one seemed to belong to my kind.
Was I truly a monster?
Was I some kind of mistake that should never have existed?
The thought destroyed me.
I tried to push these questions from my mind.
But the more I learned, the more painful everything became.
Sometimes I wished I had never left the forest.
I wished I had remained ignorant of everything beyond hunger, thirst, warmth, and cold.
Knowledge was a strange thing.
Once an idea entered your mind, you could not simply remove it.
It stayed there.
I sometimes wished I could forget everything I had learned.
But I discovered that there was only one way to escape unbearable pain forever.
Death.
The thought frightened me.
I did not understand death well enough to welcome it, but I understood enough to fear it.
I admired kindness.
I loved the gentle people in the cottage.
But I was still separated from them.
I could only help them secretly.
I could watch them.
I could listen to their voices.
I could learn their language.
But I could not sit beside them.
I could not speak to them.
Their kindness was never meant for me.
Agatha’s gentle words were not meant for me.
Safie’s warm smiles were not meant for me.
The old man’s comforting voice was not meant for me.
Felix’s lively conversations were not meant for me.
I was always outside.
Always watching.
Always alone.
I began learning another painful truth about human life.
I learned about men and women.
I learned how children were born and how they grew.
I learned how fathers loved their children and took joy in their smiles.
I learned how mothers devoted their lives to caring for their families.
I learned how children gradually developed their minds and gained knowledge.
I learned about brothers, sisters, parents, and all the relationships that connected human beings to one another.
Then another terrible question came to me.
Where were my family?
Where was my father?
Where was my mother?
No one had cared for me as a baby.
No mother had held me.
No father had watched me grow.
Or perhaps they had once existed, but I remembered absolutely nothing about them.
As far back as I could remember, I had already been the size and shape I was now.
I had never seen another creature like myself.
No one had ever claimed me.
No one had ever called me family.
So what was I?
Again, I had no answer.
Only pain.
I will soon tell you what these thoughts eventually led me to do.
But first, I must return to the family in the cottage.
Their story filled me with anger, happiness, confusion, and wonder.
Yet above all, it made me love and respect them even more.
I had begun to think of them as my protectors.
Of course, they had no idea I even existed.
But in my lonely heart, I had already made them my family.