Recollection of the witches of Macbeth and the witches' kettle, in which they mixed wolves' teeth and hemlock-roots and tigers' intestines, was awoke in all who entered Mother Hecht's house and saw herself and her companions creep mysteriously round the large kettles that boiled upon the hearth. But no tigers' intestines were boiled there; they were those of peaceable domestic animals which were being prepared in a herb soup for the enjoyment of night wanderers.
An oil lamp shed a gloomy light throughout the kitchen, which at the same time served as the inn parlour. The flickering gleam of the flames assisted it in its melancholy efforts.
The Hecate, who urged the subordinate witches and night-fiends to feed the fire and to stir the kettles with all their might, was the fleck preparer herself, as fleck is the name given to the intestines which were being prepared as a dainty morsel.
The little witches were somewhat more attractive than those of the Walpurgis night, although even they, to some extent, like Kätchen of Warnicken, peered into the world with stupid, gruesome frogs' eyes.
It was a singular company in that witches' kitchen. Any one who was not acquainted with its secrets must have imagined that some magic was at work, which should transform people now into a state of wild frenzy as if they had partaken of henbane, now vampire-like suck the blood out of their veins, for some of the guests were incessantly shaking, while others possessed corpse-like countenances of a ghostly pallor.
A few members of the Albertina had almost succumbed to this magic, and with hollow eyes stared into the flames which were hissing around the kettle.
The witches' kettle, it is true, was quite innocent; the magic did not proceed from it, but rather the counter-charm against oblivion of the world, against the internal conflict, against the weariness of life, which was written in all those features.
Blanden, in these surroundings, felt like Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" upon the ship of death, where nothing but masks and visors grin at him.
Kätchen had perceived him enter, and hastened towards him.
"As soon as I can get away for a moment I will beckon to you."