It was the day after his visit to Frau Hecht's kitchen, when Blanden met the Italian again in the street. Arrested on the previous evening, Baluzzi was once more set free.
Blanden took advantage of this chance encounter to lead the conversation to the amber merchant. Giulia only vouchsafed meagre information; he was a distant connection of hers, who often importuned her with petitions, as he had once performed some great service out of gratitude for which she had taken him under her protection. Then she broke off the conversation, it was evidently an unwelcome subject. But she remained abstracted all the evening, and even confounded two Italian composers with whom she had been familiar from her youth upwards.
After a sleepless night, Giulia had a long conversation with her friend.
"It cannot go on so, Beate! The internal conflict consumes me. His claims become more and more unbounded; how happy I was when he, fettered by illness or misfortune of long duration, the veil of which he will not raise, remained in the interior of Russia; I breathed freely; now more than ever, I am in his bondage."
Beate shrugged her shoulders.
"Notwithstanding all your brilliant receipts, we shall be beggars again."
"Oh, that is not the worst! I would give up everything if I could purchase my freedom!"
"That is not his wish! He would spend everything at once; he also prefers to have a safe reserve for the future."
"Oh, there is a hell that binds us for evermore. Lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrale! You are clever and cunning, Beate! Try once more if you cannot set me free. I have no more ideas, no more plans! Whenever I ponder over it, my senses become desolate and dead. I stare into vacuity!"
"What can we do?--we must exercise patience. But if it continue thus, we shall have nothing left."