Eagerly he pointed out to her the brilliant ruler of the heavens, and five or six constellations besides. She clapped her hands with sheer delight. "Now I shall never feel lonely again in my flat," she cried, "when I am alone in the evenings and look out of the window." While he waited for her at the foot of the staircase, she ran up, turned off the light, and put the latch-key in her pocket. She told Adele she would have supper out, and prepared to be off again. Her heart was so full of ecstasy that she held on for a moment to the doorpost to prevent herself reeling, and gave a sob. But by the time she got downstairs she was quite herself again. "If you will do me the honour to trust to my guidance," he said, "I know a corner where no one will disturb us, and where we shall be transported to Italy." She gave a deep sigh. "Oh, how fond he is of talking about Italy!" she thought. Yet she wouldn't have gone anywhere else for the world. They pursued their way for five or six minutes along the dark bank of the canal, talking nonsense. Now the medley of lights on the Potsdamer Bridge were quite near, and he stopped before a small dimly lit window in which were displayed a dozen or so of wine-bottles wreathed with green cotton vine-leaves, looking like heads of asparagus popping out of the sand. "Here Signore Battistini will serve us with a Chianti as good as any to be had in Florence," he declared. They went in, and threaded their way through a small front room where the proprietor, black as the devil himself, was pasting on labels behind the bar. He was greeted with "Sera, padrone" by Lilly's new friend. They passed into a long room full of rough tables and chairs. The only attempt at decoration were garlands cut out of green glazed paper, which were evidently ambitious of being taken for vines. They twined round the bare gas-brackets and cascaded over hooks on the wall, and in order that there should be no mistake as to what was the origin of all these festive tokens, a placard hung from the middle, wishing all who entered--at the end of March--a belated "Prosit Neujahr." "How do you like this fairy-garden?" Lilly's friend asked her, as the waiter, black as his master, with eyes like fiery Catherine-wheels, beseechingly held out his hands for her cloak. At the tables round them sat bushy-haired youths, who rolled long, thin cigars between their teeth, and nearly thrust their knuckles in each other's eyes as they gabbled Italian with fascinating rapidity. "They are marble-cutters," Dr. Rennschmidt said _sotto voce_, "employed by our leading sculptors. They earn a lot of money, and when they have saved enough go home to start housekeeping."