"She shan't go, she shan't go," he howled, and shouted it louder and louder: "She shan't go." He was in a mad, indescribable frame of mind. He threw himself back, stretched himself out and struck the bedstead with his feet, so that it creaked in all the joints.
Käte was terrified; she had never seen him so violent before. But how right she was. His behaviour showed her that plainly. No, she must not call herself cruel even if his tears flowed; it was necessary that Cilia went. But she was sorry for him.
"Wölfchen," she said persuasively, "why, Wölfchen. She tried to soothe him, and drew up his cover that had fallen down with gentle hand. But as soon as she touched him he pushed her away.
"Wölfchen--Wölfchen--you with your Wölfchen! As if I were a baby still. My name is Wolfgang. And you are unjust--envious--you only want her to go away because I like her better, much better than you."
He shouted in her face, and she became deathly white. She felt as though she must scream with pain. She who had suffered so much for his sake was of less account than Cilia in his opinion? All at once she remembered all the burning and ineffaceable tears she had already shed for his sake. And of all the hard hours during his illness none had been so hard as this one.
She forgot that he was still a child, a naughty boy. Had he not said himself: "I'm not a child any longer"? His behaviour seemed unpardonable. She left the room without a word.
He followed her with eyes full of dismay: had he hurt her? All at once he was conscious that he had done so--oh no, he did not want to do that. He had already got half out of bed to run after her on his bare feet, to hold her fast by her dress and say: "Are you angry?"--when he suddenly remembered Cilia again. No, it was too bad of her to tell her to go.
He wept as he crept under the bed-clothes and folded his hands. Cilia had told him he was to pray to the Holy Virgin, to that smiling woman in the blue mantle covered with stars, who sits on a throne over the altar with the crown on her head. She healed everything. And when she asked God in Heaven for anything, He did it. He would pray to her now.
Cilia had once taken him to her church, when his mother was at the baths and his father in the Tyrol. He had had to promise her not to tell anybody about it, and the charm of the secrecy had increased the charm of the church. An unconscious longing drew him to those altars, where the saints looked so beautiful and where you could see God incarnate, to whom he had been told to pray as to a father. He had never liked the church so much which his mother sometimes went to, and in which he had also been.
That longing, which had clung to him ever since like a fairy tale, now came over him forcibly and vividly. Yes, it was beautiful to be able to kneel like that before the Holy Virgin, who was lovelier than all women on earth, and hardly had you laid your request before her when its fulfilment was insured. Splendid!