For a time I kept out of his way, I did not want to have anything to do with him; too many mysterious rumors had become attached to his name. But above all things I was worried by a sense of obligation, implanted in me since my affair with Kromer. And just at that time I had enough to do with my own secrets. For the confirmation class coincided with the period when I was definitively enlightened on matters of sex, and in spite of my good will, my interest in the pious instruction was on that account greatly diminished. The things of which the clergyman spoke lay far from me in a still, sacred unreality; they may have been quite beautiful and valuable, but in no way real and stirring, as were in the highest degree, these other things.