A woman of her sort could come to only one decision, and that was to send her father and mother to their graves with the aid of the white powder which had proved so effective in the case of her brutal husband. She accordingly pretended to forget Gottfried, and sought a reconciliation with her parents, who, to celebrate the reunion, gave a pork supper in her honour. Gesina, who was particularly fond of this favourite dish, did full justice to it, although before sitting down to the table she had put arsenic in the beer her parents were to drink! When they were taken to their room in agony she calmly continued to eat, and she was so callous that when they died she shed no tears.
With three victims to her account Gesina went to see Gottfried. He affected to be overjoyed at meeting her again, and, fortified by the knowledge that the opposition of her parents rendered a ceremony of marriage between them impossible, spontaneously invited her to have dinner with him. But Gesina took away his appetite at the very beginning of the meal by informing him that her parents had suddenly died, and that there was now no reason why he should not fulfil his promise and make her his wife.
Gottfried went pale with terror, and so great was his agitation that she noticed it at once, and taxed him with trying to deceive her. The unhappy coward protested that she was doing him an injustice.
"I am grieved to hear of their death," he stammered, perspiration breaking out on his forehead. "I had a great respect for them, and your tragic news has upset me."
Gesina laughed contemptuously.
"Considering that they always treated you like dirt, you needn't wear mourning for them," she retorted. "Don't be a fool, Hermann. All I want to know is when we can be married? I'm tired of living alone."
The last sentence put an idea into his head. It reminded him that she had two children. In faltering tones he suggested that it would be inadvisable to marry. He swore that he had nothing saved, and that it would be too heavy a burden for him to provide for a wife who would bring with her another man's two children.
If Gesina had not been satisfied that she had the means of removing everybody who stood in her way she would have been extremely angry with Gottfried, but now she only became pensive, and a little later proceeded to discuss his objection in detail.
"You don't object to me, I suppose?" she asked, holding her clasped hands under her chin.
He protested with many oaths that he loved her to distraction, but that the children were so many barriers to their marriage because he was really poor.