Kinderseele
Hermann Hesse
 One day Hermann Hesse, an eleven-year-old boy, returns from school and as nobody is at home he goes upstairs into his father’s room where he steals sugared and dried figs out of his dad’s chest of drawers. Although he has pangs of conscience and thinks a lot about his deed, he does not confess it to his father. Hermann pretends to have bought the figs at the cake shop in Calw. That is why his father punishes him by taking him there; but before entering the shop, the boy tells that he did not get them there. At home he finally admits that he stole the figs. The book ends with the phrase: “Als ich im Bett lag, hatte ich die Gewissheit, dass er mir ganz und vollkommen verziehen habe – vollkommener als ich ihm.” Hesse himself made a comment on his book in a letter to his sister Adele, in which he stated that the way described in Kinderssele was one of extremely straight psychology and love of truth.