did not want to tell me what was the matter. But when I
said I should go away if she did not tell me, she said: "All right, but
you must not make such idiotic faces, and above all you must not look
at me." "Very well," I said, "I won't look, but tell me everything about
it." So then she told me that she had felt frantically bad, as if she
was being cut in two, much worse than after the appendicitis operation,
and then she had frantically high fever and shivered at the same time,
all Friday, and yesterday -- -- -- tableau!! And then her mother told
her the chief things, though she knew them already. Earlier on Friday
the doctor had said: "Don't let us be in a hurry to think about a
relapse, there may be _other!!_ causes." And then he whispered to her
mother, but Hella caught the word _enlighten_. Then she knew directly
what time of day it was. She acted the innocent to her mother, as if she
knew nothing at all, and her mother kissed her and said, now you are not
a child any more, now you belong among the grown-ups. How absurd, so
_I_ am still a child! After all, on July 30th I shall be 14 too, and at
least one month before I shall have it too, so I shan't be a _child_ for
more than six months more. Hella and I laughed frightfully, but she is
really a little puffed up about it; she won't admit that she is, but I
noticed it quite clearly. The only girl I know who did not put on airs
when that happened was Ada. Because of the school Hella is awfully shy,
and before her father too. But her mother has promised her not to tell
him. If only one can trust her!!!

January 7th. Hella came to school to-day _in spite of everything_. I
kept on looking at her, and in the interval she said: "I have told you
already that you must not stare at me in that idiotic way, and this is
the second time I've had to speak to you about it. One must not make
a joke about such things." I was not going to stand that. One must not
look at her; very well, in the third lesson I sat turning away from her;
then suddenly she hooked one of my feet with hers so that I nearly
burst out laughing, and she said: "Do look round, for that way is even
stupider." Of course Dunker promptly called us to order, that is, she
told Hella to go on reading, but Hella said promptly that she felt very
unwell, and that what she had said to me was, she would have to go
home at 12. All the girls looked at one another, for they all know
what _unwell_ means, and Frau Doktor Dunker