Reading obscure German Literature with Polka!
The title of the video appears to be in reference to the short story "Jugendgedenken" by Hermann Hesse. It seems to be required reading for 1st Year Middle Schools students in Japan (12-13 year olds).
> As the kids go to bed, I brag to my clients that I have started collecting butterflies. Accepting his offer, I show him a specimen of a Yellow Bands Underwing. The customer is intrigued by the memory of his youth and mentions that he was an avid collector as a boy. However, despite his words, he closes the lid of the specimen as if the memories themselves were unpleasant. The customer apologizes for his rudeness and confesses that he has "defiled his own memories...
> I started collecting butterflies when I was 8 or 9 years old under the influence of my friends, and a year later I was hooked. The passion I felt then is still palpable today, and the mixture of subtle pleasure and intense desire was one of the few things I felt in the rest of my life.
> My parents didn't provide me with a fine specimen box, so I kept them in a cardboard box, but I didn't feel comfortable showing them to my friends who had fine specimen boxes. One day, I caught a rare Purple Emperor and made a specimen. This was the only time I wanted to show it off, so I thought I would show it to my teacher's son, Emile, who lived across the courtyard. Emile was an "impeccable" model boy, his specimens were beautifully arranged, and he had the advanced skill to restore damaged wings with glue. I admired him, but hated him as a creepy, envious, and "vicious" person. Although Emile acknowledged the rarity of the Purple Emperor, he pointed out the weakness of the spreading technique and the missing legs, and gave it a scathing evaluation of "20 Pfennigs at most," which discouraged me from ever showing it to him again.
> Two years later, at the height of my passion, rumors began to circulate that Emile had acquired and hatched a precious cocoon of the Sloe Emperor Moth. The Sloe Emperor Moth was a butterfly that he had only encountered in illustrations in books, and he wanted it badly. I couldn't wait for Emile to release it to the public, so I went to visit him for a glimpse. I crept into the room where he was not home and found it on the wing spreader. I remove it from the spreader and try to take it out with a great sense of satisfaction. After leaving the room, the sound of the maid's footsteps approaching brought me back to myself, and I involuntarily twisted the butterfly into my pocket. Tormented by a sense of guilt, I turned around and tried to put it back, but found it crushed in my pocket, and despaired to the point of tears.
> I ran back and confess to my mother. She understands my pain and offers to apologize and pay for it. I was reluctant to do so, as I was convinced that Emile would not understand, but my mother urged me to visit him. Seeing Emile's desperate and fruitless attempts at restoration, I tell him the truth. Emile clicks his tongue and mutters sarcastically, "Now I understand. In the end you are such a kind of fellow, I see.". I offered to give him all my toys and specimens as compensation, but he said, "No thanks. I already know what you've collected. Besides, today I got to see again how well you handle the butterflies." My collector's pride shattered, I resisted the urge to jump on him and endured his scornful gaze, at a loss for words.
> It helped that my mother left me alone as I realized that I could never make amends for what had happened. I crushed the specimens into pieces with my fingers, one by one, as a farewell to collecting.
