Because of this, some people noticed that she had a good memory and had been suffering from recitation.

Sofia always had a German version of the Bible at hand. In that Bible, all the chapters that she had to memorize at that time were underlined in red.

Compared with the pastor, Babette's educational methods are already very gentle.

Sophia's father was a fervent Lutheran, and he chose Wagner, a pedantic military chaplain, to be his daughter's religion, geography and history teacher.

Wagner's teaching methods were very rigid. He only knew how to make students memorize textbooks. As a result, his students learned almost nothing.

In Wagner's description, Sophia is a "smart fool" who always asks embarrassing questions:

For example, why did a great sage like Marcus Aurelius suffer endless curses because he did not know the salvation of Christ, and he himself could not be saved?

Wagner replied that this was God's will.

Regarding the question of what the universe was like before creation, Wagner's answer was a chaotic world.

Sophia asked the teacher to tell her about the chaotic world at the beginning, and Wagner was speechless.

When Wagner mentioned the word "circumcision", another question naturally arose.

What does this word mean?

Wagner was so frightened in that position that he refused to answer the question.

While explaining in detail the horrific scenes of the Doomsday Judgment and the difficulties of salvation, Wagner frightened Sophia so much that she had to go to the window and cry every evening.

But Sophia will fight back against the teacher the next day——

How does God’s infinite mercy reconcile with the horrors of the Last Judgment?

While Wagner was shouting that there was no reasonable explanation for this kind of problem, everything he taught Sofia must be accepted without any doubt, while waving his cane to frighten the students.

Babette intervened to interrupt their argument.

Therefore, Sophia secretly said that Mr. Wagner was a piece of cake, and she was convinced of this.

Then she added, "In this life, I have always been willing to give in to gentleness and reason. Oppression will only make me rise up to resist."

However, neither tenderness nor suppression by Sophia's music teacher, Mr. Luo Lin, had any effect on Sophia.

In a later letter to a friend, Sophia wrote:

"Mr. Rolling always brought a man with a drake's voice, and he let him sing in my room. I listened to that man's singing and thought he sounded like a bull.

But as soon as the drake opens his voice, Mr. Rowling is always happy to be by his side."

Sophia lacked the ability to appreciate the art of harmony, and she wrote deeply in her diary:

"I am eager to listen to music and enjoy the beauty of music, but all my efforts are in vain. To me, it is just noise."

Among the three teachers, Sofia loved Babette the most because Sofia believed that she had a noble soul, was well-educated, and had a heart like gold.

Babette was patient, gentle, cheerful, fair and consistent.

In short, Sophia wanted all children to have such a governess.

As she grew older, Sophia began to become independent.

But the more independent she appeared, the more Johanna worried about her.

Johanna decided that this girl was arrogant and difficult to control. In order to marry her off, these defects in her must be eliminated.

For the princesses of the small principality, marriage is their only way out, and Johanna is determined to drive "the ghost of pride away from her".

Johanna always told her daughter that she was ugly and rude.

Unless someone spoke to Sophia first, Sophia was not allowed to say a word, nor was she allowed to express her opinions to adults. She was also forced to kneel down to every female guest who came and kiss the hem of their skirts.

Sophia did not disobey her mother's orders.

Although she did not receive love and recognition, Sophia still respected her mother and always remained silent in front of her mother.

Obey the mother's will and hide her own thoughts.

At some point, Sophia has become accustomed to covering up her inner pride with humility as a prudent and effective way to deal with crises and threats.

Under threat, Sophia wrapped herself in docility, submission, and temporary surrender. Babette Caddell also set an example for Sophia in this regard.

This noble-born woman accepted her low status as a governess, but still managed to maintain her self-respect, dignity, and pride. These qualities made the governess more worthy of her respect in Sophia's eyes than her mother.

On the surface, Sophia is always in high spirits, partly because of the endless curiosity in her head, but also because of her abundant energy.

Sophia needed a lot of exercise and a walk in the park with Babette Caddell was not enough, so her parents allowed her to play with the other children in the town.

It didn't take much effort for Sophia to become the king of children. It wasn't just her status as a princess that played a role.

It was the games she designed with her own imagination that won the love of all the children.

Finally, Christian August, a border commander, was promoted to ruler of the town of Stettin, and with this promotion he moved into the wing of the granite castle in the central square of Stettin.

Living in the castle still failed to make Johanna change. She still looked depressed, and she still couldn't accept the arrangement of fate for her——

She is married!

She once dreamed of a glorious life, but now she is just a country bumpkin in a border town.

After the first two births, she gave birth to two more children, a son and a daughter, but these two children also did not bring much happiness to Johanna.

Johanna was eager to escape from all this, and remembering that she still had some powerful relatives, she planned to ask them for help.

From a bloodline point of view, Johanna is a member of one of the most important families in Germany, the Duke of Holstein.

She firmly believes that with her family's status, coupled with her intelligence, charm and energy, she still has a chance to climb to a higher position.

She began to spend a lot of time frequently writing letters to relatives and visiting them at home to maintain the contact between herself and her relatives.

She often visited the Duke of Brunswick's house, and her girlhood was spent in this splendid palace decorated with paintings by Rembrandt and Van Dyck.

In addition, every February, during the party season, she went to Berlin to pay her respects to the King of Prussia.

Johanna was full of enthusiasm for things like intrigue, and even the conspiracies that took place in the small principalities of Germany could attract her attention. She felt excited when she heard such rumors.

She always felt that she could shine in political intrigues.

However, no matter where she went, Johanna always clearly realized that she was just a poor relative of her prominent relatives, a little girl with a good family background but bleak prospects for married life.

When Sophia was eight years old, Johanna started taking her out with her.

It was Johanna's bounden duty to find a suitable in-law for her daughter, and it would not cause any harm to do it when her daughter was still young. She had to let the outside world know that there was a little princess in Stettin who was growing mature.

Sophia has never been averse to traveling with her mother, on the contrary she loves going out.

As she grew older, not only did she understand more and more clearly the purpose of these visits to relatives and friends, but she also enjoyed it with great joy.

Marriage is not only the best way for her to escape from her mother and family, but she has already witnessed another terrible future——

The lives of aunts who never married.

The surplus women from the small aristocratic families in northern Germany were either sent to live in the farthest wing of the family castle, or permanently placed in a remote Catholic convent.

Sophia's mother had more than one sister in such a miserable condition, and Sophia visited one of them.

The aunt raised 16 pugs. The dogs lived and ate in the same room as the mistress and were completely uninhibited.

Moreover, there were many large parrots living in that room, and there was an indescribable smell that enveloped the room.

Although Sophia herself longed to get married, her chances of finding a good marriage were slim.

Every year, a new batch of young and marriageable princesses are born in Europe. For the ruling royal family and aristocratic families, the conditions offered by most of them are far higher than those of the insignificant Zerbst family. Much more generous.

And in the eyes of others, including Sophia herself, they think she is ugly.

Despite her bleak future and "mediocre appearance", Sophia still followed her mother throughout northern Germany.

Traveling further enriched her studies, and she learned about the family origins of most of Europe's royal families through the gossips told by adults.

But as time went by, this ugly monster became more and more beautiful.

When she was 13 years old, she became a slender girl with satin-like dark chestnut hair, a full forehead, a pair of shining dark blue eyes, and lips that were raised like buds.

The originally sharp jaw was no longer so obvious, and she gradually attracted everyone's attention in other aspects.

Sophia is not only smart, but also very responsive. Some people begin to realize that she is definitely not an insignificant little girl.

The Swedish diplomat Count Henning Ulenberg met Sofia at her grandmother's house in Hamburg, and she left a deep impression on him.

He said to Johanna in front of Sophia:

"Madam, you don't know this child well. I dare say you underestimate her intelligence and character, so I implore you to pay more attention to your daughter. She deserves your attention anyway."

However, Johanna was not impressed.

However, when they returned to Stettin, a letter from Russia surprised everyone in the Zerbst family.

What the letter mentioned was exactly what Johanna had always dreamed of.

While this ambitious mother led her daughter to visit various minor nobles in northern Germany, she was also busy trying to use her noble relatives to realize her dream.

For a long time, Johanna's family, the Holstein family, has maintained an in-law relationship with the Romanov dynasty that ruled Tsarist Russia.

When Sophia was 12 years old, Peter the Great's youngest daughter, Elizabeth, seized the Russian throne in a midnight coup in November.

There was a strong emotional bond between the newly crowned empress and the Holstein family.
To be continued...