But I seemed to have gained a point. I rather liked to be somewhat ill and to be allowed to spend the morning in bed drinking chamomile tea, to listen to mother clearing-up in the next room, and to hear Lina outside in the corridor opening the door to the butcher. To stay away from morning school was rather like a fairy-story, and the sun which played in the room was not the same you saw through the green curtains at school. But today all this had lost its charm for me. It had a false ring about it.

If I had died! But I was only slightly ill, as I had often been before, and nothing was gained by that. It prevented me from going to school, but it did not protect me in any way from Kromer, who would be waiting for me in the market at eleven o’clock. And mother’s friendliness was this time without comfort; it was burdensome and painful. I soon pretended to be asleep again, and thought the matter over, but all to no purpose⁠—I had to be in the market at eleven o’clock. For that reason I got up at ten, and said that I was better. As usual in such cases I was told that either I must go back to bed or go to school in the afternoon. I said I would rather go to school. I had formed a plan.