Now she sat down beside him and the whole affair proceeded finely.  Not that Auntie formed the sentences, no indeed, she was not going to cheat the teacher; but she knew well what was needed to form a sentence and she pushed and spurred Ritz and brought so many things before him, and reminded him how they looked, that he had his three sentences and his nine qualities together in no time.  Now there came a feeling to Ritz that he had not acted right, when he said that an aunt must not always be reminding people, and when now Auntie asked:  “Ritz, why had you to write the sentences?” then the feeling grew stronger in him, for he felt that he could not tell the cause of his punishment without making his aunt angry.  He stuttered, “I have—­I have—­the teacher has said, that I made an unfitting sentence.”

“Yes, I can imagine that,” said Auntie.  “Now quickly to bed.”

Edi and Ritz slept in the same room and that was the place where the two boys, every evening after the mother had said evening prayer with them, and they were alone, exchanged their deepest thoughts and experiences with one another and talked them over.  Ritz had the greatest respect for Edi, for although the latter was only a little older, yet he was already in the fourth class, and he himself was only in the second, and in history Edi knew more than the scholars in the fifth and some in the sixth class.  When now the two were well tucked in their beds, Ritz said:  “Edi, was it a sin that I said Auntie must not always remind?” Edi thought a bit, such a case had never come to him.  After a while he said:  “You see, Ritz, it goes thus:  if you have done something that is a sin, then you must go at once to Daddy and confess, there is no help for it; but if you do that, then everything comes again in order and you feel happy again, and afterwards you look out not to do the sinful thing again.  I can tell you that, Ritz.  But if you do not confess, then you are always full of fear when a door is slammed or a letter-carrier unexpectedly brings a letter, then you think at once:  ’There now, everything will come out.’  And so you are never sure nor safe and you feel a pressure in the chest.  But there is another thing that presses so hard that you can think of nothing else, for example, if you have given away a rabbit, you regret it afterwards.  But there is a remedy and I have tried it many a time, and it helps.  You must think of something dreadful, like a large fire, when everything is burnt up, the fortress and the soldiers in it and all historical books, and—­all at once you think everything backwards and you have everything; then you are so glad that you think:  what difference does a rabbit make?  You still have everything else.  Now Ritz, try that and see if it helps you, then you can find out whether everything passes away or whether you have to tell Daddy tomorrow.”

“Yes, I will try it,” said Ritz somewhat indistinctly, and soon after he took such deep breaths that Edi knew what was going on.  He heaved a sigh and said:  “Oh, Ritz, you are asleep and I wanted to tell you so much about the old Egyptian.”