Mrs. Tiralla had never imagined that she could feel so much love for her daughter. She was really fond of her now. Marianna would on no account sleep any longer in the same room as Rosa; she said that it was impossible to close an eye the whole night through, and if she worked so hard during the day she really must rest at night. The truth was that when Marianna stole out of bed in order to go to her lover, the child would sit up in bed and call out, "Where are you going, Marianna?" and there was such a strange note of reproach and admonition in her voice, that the girl shuddered and did not venture to go to Jendrek. How had the child found it out? So Mrs. Tiralla had her bed brought up to her daughter's room. Her husband cursed and raged, for hitherto he had at least had his wife next to him on the same floor. But she insisted upon having her own way. She said that Röschen wanted care, and mustn't sleep alone. And he saw that she was right. At night, when the house was so quiet that the ticking of the big clock sounded like peals of thunder and her husband's snores like a saw-mill hard at work, Mrs. Tiralla would sit by her child's bed. She would hold her hand--a small, narrow, delicate-looking hand with blue veins--and they would whisper together about the joys of Paradise. Whilst all around was joyless--the dark night, the lonely farm buried in deep snow, the solitude in which a soul so often gets lost--those two would whisper together about the joys of Paradise--about nothing else. The heavenly world in which Mrs. Tiralla had also [Pg 83] lived as a child had once more drawn near to her by means of Rosa. She could very well understand what occupied the child's thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. And that was right, for she was to be a saint. Was she not almost one now? There was a rapt expression in Rosa's eyes, when she used to tell her mother about what she had seen, about the Holy Mother and the Child Jesus, and about her beautiful, beautiful guardian angel who always sat at her bedside when she was asleep. A short time before, she had suddenly awaked in the night, but had been too tired to open her eyes properly, and she had found the angel bending over her--such a beautiful angel in a long white garment. Mrs. Tiralla knew all about it. It had been she, and the white garment was her nightdress, which was long and fine, like those worn by smart ladies. But she let the child remain in her belief. Why undeceive her? And after that she used to creep every night to Rosa's bed and disturb her sleep by laying her hand on her head and bending over her as if she were her guardian angel, to the child's and her own great delight. She loved doing it. She even practised her part, so that she grew more and more proficient in it every night.