Then the snow crackled, and a gnome-like creature crept up to the gate; almost buried beneath the weight of snow which the clouds and trees had shed upon her, she stared at the stranger with glaring eyes; she looked like an Esquimaux woman, at whose hut some stranger's hand knocks.
It was Kätchen! After that meeting with Blanden she had stayed up in her chamber; had tossed about upon her straw couch as if in feverish delirium, until the grey morn rose above the roofs, then she had fallen fast asleep. But mother Hecht knew no consideration for lazy maid-servants, who neglected their duties--and when Kätchen, on the following morning, appeared in the kitchen with hollow eyes and pallid face, she was immediately driven out of the house.
The Italian, who had known her at the sea-side, and had long had an eye upon her, had also often spoken to her in the witch's kitchen, heard of it; according to his views she combined two qualities which were of equal value for his purposes; want of understanding, sullen indifference to all that lay beyond her horizon, and a marvellously developed instinct for everything in which she was interested. That which was repulsive, even idiotic in her nature, was peculiarly acceptable to him; she passed unnoticed, no one cared about her. Thus she could do excellent service as a spy, and at night she was always to be found at her post as porteress and sentinel where forbidden pleasures were pursued.
"Open the gate," said Beate. Kätchen examined her from head to foot, and shrugged her shoulders.
"Aprite dunque," repeated Beate angrily, although the porteress, who seemed to belong to the polar regions, did not bear the least resemblance to an Italian.
Kätchen asked her name. Beate gave her a card, upon which were written the words Beate Romani.
The little porteress sprang along the garden walk, in doing which it pleased her to sweep the bushes in the nearest beds, so that their boughs rattled, and threw out clouds of snow.
Beate became impatient, she had to wait a long time; she shook the bars of the railing like a wild beast in a cage.
At last Käthe returned and opened the garden gate. Beate followed her into the villa, they passed through a garden lighted with red lamps, up a flight of steps, covered with a lovely carpet. Beate had to wait in an ante-room; deathlike silence reigned in both the adjoining chambers disturbed by no cry, by no chink of money, as she had expected.
She looked at a picture on the wall; it represented a little church upon an island in a lake; on all sides, high, bare hills, which glowed in the radiant colouring of an Italian evening sky. She knew that church, and gazed at the picture with a shrug of her shoulders; it awoke a reminiscence, which at that moment was very unwelcome. And what mockery--the house of God in the antechamber of a gambling hell!