Did not the food please her?  Perhaps she was accustomed in Italy to a different way of cooking?  “Other nations, other customs.”

But who could feel annoyed with that heavenly creature?

Frau Schimmel was of the opinion that she had never seen any one to equal her, and could not bear to take her eyes off her.  Yet the appearance of the wife of her old favorite filled her with forebodings, and suddenly, though she was by no means superstitious or given to presentiments, she seemed to see Frau Bianca—­so the young Italian was called—­lying on her bier, a light veil over her, and a wreath of lilies-of-the-valley on her raven hair.  A sad quiet face!

Frau Schimmel’s vision must have been caused by the young wife’s excessive paleness.  “White as snow, black as ebony” fitted her, as well the beauty of the fairy tale, only “red as blood” was wanting.  She was also as tall and slender as the lilies in the little garden that the Court apothecary had owned outside the Petersthor.

After supper Frau Schimmel helped the mother to bathe the little Zeno and to put him to bed, and Melchior also assisted at the performance.  As the old lady looked from mother to child a great pity filled her heart for the dear son of her late master who had staked his happiness on a creature so ethereal that the first wind might blow her away; such delicate perfection as that, if her experience did not deceive her, was hardly adapted to the needs of an everyday German husband.  But then did Melchior look like such an one?  No.

Again she felt a cold shiver go down her back, for Melchior had taken the bath sheet and was holding it in front of him waiting to wrap the child in it as it was taken out of its tub, and it seemed to her as if he had on a shroud and his bloodless emaciated face with his black hair and moustache looked ghostly over the top of it.

It annoyed her that she should have these stupid, sad thoughts on the occasion of such a happy home coming!

She did her best to drive them away and the child helped her, for it, at least, looked lively enough as it sat in the warm water, and kicked, and splashed, and laughed, and cooed, calling to its parents and then to Frau Schimmel.  When it tried to pronounce her name, her heart overflowed and she answered absently, for she was saying a silent Paternoster for the health and welfare of this blessed child who somehow seemed even lovelier than Melchior had once been, though in his time she had considered him “the sweetest baby that had ever lived.”

When the child was in bed the mother folded its hands and murmured what Frau Schimmel knew to be a prayer, but the father touched, its forehead and the place about the heart with an essence, speaking at the same time some incomprehensible words.  Whatever they meant, they seemed to agree well enough with the incomparable child.

The young wife was tired after her long journey and went early to bed, and when the housekeeper was finally left alone with Melchior, he begged her to tell him how things had gone with his father, after his departure.