hort, all the reprobate women
around Frau Ratzer, whose feet had just been tied on account of her
unruly behaviour in the Countess von Montfort's presence--obeyed her
signal, and the fierce voices raised in demand and invective woke those
who were sleeping farther away. Weeping, wailing, and screaming they
started up, clamouring to know what danger threatened them, whilst Frau
Ratzer and her fellow-conspirators shrieked for beer or wine instead of
water, for meat with the black bread and wretched broth and, yelling
and howling, bade the patroness tell her husband that they thought him a
brute and a bloodhound.

There was a hideous, confused, ear-splitting din, which threatened
serious consequences, for some of the women, leaving their straw beds,
hastened towards the door or surrounded Frau Christine and Eva with
uplifted fists and threatening nails.

The warning voices of the matrons, to whose aid the Beguines had
hastened, were drowned by the uproar, but the danger which specially
threatened Eva, whom the barber's widow pointed out to her neighbour
who had stolen a child to train it to beg, was soon ended, for the wild
cries had reached the men's building, from which Herr Berthold Pfinzing
came hurrying in, accompanied by the superintendent, his assistants, and
several monks.

If the women reproached the magistrate, who in reality was a lenient
judge, with being a cruel tyrant, they were now to learn that he
certainly did not lack uncompromising energy. The unpleasant position in
which he found his wife and his beloved godchild did not incline him
to gentleness. He would have liked to have tied the hands of all these
women, most of whom had forfeited the consideration due their sex. This
was really done to the most unruly, while the barber's widow was carried
to the prison-chamber, which the hospital did not lack.

After quiet was at last restored and Frau Christine had told her husband
that she had been attacked while on her way to show him a delightful
scene in the midst of all this terrible misery, he angrily exclaimed:
"A magnificent picture! Balm for the eyes and ears of your own brother's
virginal daughter! The saints be praised that you both escaped so
easily. Can there be in the worst hell anything more horrible than what
has just been witnessed here? Really, where a Countess Cordula cannot
endure----"

Here Frau Christine soothingly interrupted her irate husband, and so
great was her influence over him,