That was already a long time ago, but Kullrich was still not happy. When they all walked in the playground during the interval, eating their bread and butter, he stood at some distance and did not eat. Was it really so hard to lose one's mother? There was a wonderful moon shining over the silent pines that night; the boy lay half out of the window for a long, long time. His eyes were burning: his thoughts buzzed in his head like a swarm of gnats that whirl round and round and up and down in the air like a cloud. Where did they come from all at once? He exposed his hot forehead, his chest, from which his nightshirt had slipped, to the cool night air in May--ah, that did him good. That was the best, the only thing that soothed, that gave peace. Oh, how delightful the air was, so pure, so fresh. Where could Cilia be now? he wondered. He had never heard anything more about her, She was where he would like to have been--oh, how he would have liked it. Something that resembled the sound of bells came floating along, and he stretched out his arms and bent further and further out of the window. Wolfgang had such a vivid dream about Cilia that night that when he awoke he thought she was standing at his bedside, that she had not left him yet. But after he had rubbed his eyes, he saw that the spot on which she had just been standing smiling so pleasantly was empty. After school was over he had to go to the Bible-lesson; he was to be confirmed the following Easter. True, he was still young, but Paul Schlieben had said to his wife: "He is so developed physically. We can't have him confirmed when he is outwardly, at any rate, a grown-up man. Besides, his age is just right. It is much better for him if he does not begin to reflect first." Did he not reflect already? It often seemed to Kate as if the boy evaded her questions, when she asked him about the Bible-lesson. Did his teacher not understand how to make an impression on him? Dr. Baumann was looked upon as an excellent theologian, everybody rushed to hear his sermons; to be allowed to join his confirmation classes, that were always so crowded, was a special favour; all his pupils raved about him, people who had been confirmed by him ten, fifteen years before, still spoke of it as an event in their lives. Kate made a point of going to hear this popular clergyman's sermons very often. Formerly she had only gone to church at Christmas and on Good Friday, now she went almost every Sunday to please her boy, for he had to go now. They left the house together every Sunday, drove to church together, sat next to each other; but whilst she thought: "How clever, how thought-out, what fervour, surely he must carry a youthful mind away with him"? Wolfgang thought: "If only it were over!" He felt bored. And his soul had never soared there as when the little bell rang when the monstrance had been raised, when he had smelt the odour of incense before dim altars.