Blanden was struck to his heart; he had imagined this connection, but now that he saw it in black and white, written with the trembling hand of death, so that all soothing doubt had become impossible for evermore; that these half-faded characters, as did the _Mene Tekel_ of Belshazzar, announced to him in fire how Eva had merely sought death because he had loved her mother, he was terribly shaken, as with a new unexpected blow. He felt as though a hurricane whirled up all the withered leaves of his life and dashed them into his face. He struggled for composure, one hand propped upon the window-ledge in the wet snow, the other covering his eyes. There was a long pause. Kätchen still lay upon her knees; in her face an expression of silent beatitude--he had spoken kindly and lovingly to her. All the more was she alarmed when Blanden suddenly sprang upon her in violent anger and dragged her up roughly. "And this message from the dead you have withheld from me for years, not from idiotcy, not from mental stupidity--I see through you now. It was all pretence or deceit, who can tell; or else such God-forsaken creatures have a cursed instinct that is as cunning as much vaunted reason. You would not save Eva, merely because I loved her. You did not give me her words of farewell, because they urged me to love her mother; you only gave me these lines now when her mother is also dead! I was to love nothing in the world excepting yourself! Rather would I tarry at the North Pole with senseless seals than with such a creature as you! Certainly, they, too, possess the power to kill men! Away, out of my sight, you horror!" And he dashed her from him, so that she fell upon her straw couch. A short pause ensued; the light faded into smoke. Blanden groped for the door. Then he heard Kätchen's voice from the bed; it sounded quite changed--ghostly and hollow-- "Yes, none of them shall have you; none, none--only I alone! Ha-ha, I save no one--whosoever seeks death may have it--there will be room, there will be room. May they all die, all-- Hark! the sea rises--come into my boat, come, come!" Blanden had reached the door; he had begun to feel it gruesome with the love-mad girl. In his haste to escape he had not thought of the obstacles which would impede him; now here, now there, knocking against them he felt for the stairs, down which he stumbled in the dark without caring that he had hurt his foot by frequent false steps. Below in the witches' kitchen the kettle was simmering as before; but Mother Hecht, her elbows planted on her hips, stood surrounded once more with her unoccupied subordinate witches and a new troop of students who had arrived, gazing at the spectacle which was afforded them, the hero being once again none other than the Italian, only that this time he could not display himself to the crowd in the elevated consciousness of having performed a daring deed.