Kuni opened her eyes as wide as if a miracle had happened, and the crimson spots on her sunken cheeks betrayed how deeply she was agitated.  But she had never experienced anything of this kind; for while thinking of the time when, through Lienhard Groland’s intercession, she had entered the house of the wealthy old Frau Schurstab, in order to become estranged from a vagabond life, and recalling how once, when he saw her sorrowful there, he had spoken kindly to her, it seemed as if she had actually heard his own voice.  As it still appeared to echo in her ears, she suddenly became aware that the words really did proceed from his lips.  What she had heard in her dream and what now came from his own mouth, as he stood at the door, blended into one.  She would never have believed that the power of imagination could reproduce anything so faithfully.

Listening intently, she said to herself that, during the many thousand times when she had talked with him in fancy, it had also seemed as if she heard him speak.  And the same experience had befallen her eyes; for whenever memory reverted to those distant days, she had beheld him just as he now looked standing on the threshold, where he was detained by the landlady of The Pike.  Only his face had become still more manly, his bearing more dignified.  The pleasant, winning expression of the bearded lips remained unchanged, and more than once she had seen his eyes sparkle with a far warmer light than now, while he was thanking the portly woman for her cordial welcome.

While Kuni’s gaze still rested upon him as if spellbound, Cyriax nudged her, stammering hurriedly: 

“They will have to pass us.  Move forward, women, in front of me.  Spread out your skirt, you Redhead!  It might be my death if yonder Nuremberg fine gentleman should see me here and recollect one thing and another.”

As he spoke he dragged Kuni roughly from the window, flung the sack which he had brought in from the cart down before him, and made them sit on it, while he stretched himself on the floor face downward, and pretended to be asleep behind the women.

This suited Kuni.  If Lienhard Groland passed her now he could not help seeing her, and she had no greater desire than to meet his glance once more before her life ended.  Yet she dreaded this meeting with an intensity plainly revealed by the passionate throbbing of her heart and the panting of her weakened lungs.  There was a rushing noise in her ears, and her eyes grew dim.  Yet she was obliged to keep them wide open--what might not the next moment bring?

For the first time since her entrance she gazed around the large, long apartment, which would have deserved the name of hall had it not been too low.