Lela went up to the stairs and stops there. There is a window on the right. From there one can see far out over the neighboring treetops. One can't even see the wall that surrounds Seminary garden. Again, only more strongly than before, she has the feeling of not having lived at all. Only when one has this feeling of dissolution, only when one seems not to be there at all but is absorbed in another being, one is whole. Now when she goes down the stairs, she'll just be Lela again, and she doesn't want that. Her hands hold the white canvas, she presses the cool cloth against herself to prove to herself that she is not dreaming. She would prefer not to move at all, so as not to shake off the scent of the room and the woman, and not to destroy what had just been true.
She takes step by step carefully and waits to see whether her condition changes. No, it stays the same. She goes down the stairs, but she remains upstairs in the room, sitting in the armchair, her arms around Fräulein von Bernburg. That is real reality. The one who comes down here and goes into the locker room and opens the locker is not she, it's a dream.
Lela folds up her present and puts it in the locker like a shrine. Now the bell rings and Oda, Ilse, Lilly and Edelgard rush in. Life goes on. Lela doesn't feel disturbed at all. None of this seems to have any relation to her and doesn't prevent her from staying where she is. In an armchair, in a room upstairs on the fourth floor.