In the next room the thinner parts were beaten into shape in iron dies. It was here that the flowers and foliage were made, the ribbons and vines and arabesques, everything that curled and dangled daintily. The workingmen looked all the coarser and unwieldier by contrast. They scarcely glanced up when Lilly and Mr. Dehnicke entered, and continued to hammer as if stupefied into dealing those blows.
Lilly had a keener eye for the appearance and bearing of the men than for the work they turned out. She made comparisons, decided who was well off and who in distress, who took pleasure in his work and who went through the day's toil doggedly, because driven to it by need. Each shop had its peculiar physiognomy. In one the majority looked fresh and agile, in another galled and weary.
And now, as often before when Mr. Dehnicke had spoken to her of his employés, a senseless desire arose in Lilly to watch over the fate of all these people, help where help was necessary, bring sunshine to the gloomy, and relief to the suffering. But she took good care not to acquaint Mr. Dehnicke with her absurd ideas.
"Now we will see the most delicate of all the operations," said Mr. Dehnicke. "It is putting on the patina, which gives the pieces their real style."
He opened the door to the next shop, and the smell of a thousand poisons again assailed Lilly's nostrils.
Here there were women at work also, side by side with the men. They applied varnish and acids and brushed and rubbed. They looked sallow and jaded. At Lilly's entrance they were so taken aback that they dropped their brushes and cloths and stared at her in utter astonishment.
"One would have to begin with these to win the confidence of all," Lilly thought, and gave them a cordial nod.
But they seemed to take her greeting as mockery or blame, and turned back to their work with a grimace well-nigh scornful.
In the packing room, where women and children were employed exclusively, Lilly's appearance produced a happier impression. The girls laughed and whispered, and nudged one another with their elbows.
The only one who paid no attention to her was a pregnant woman, who seemed to find it difficult to keep from sinking to the floor. She held her drooping lips tightly compressed and a vivid red spotted her cheeks. Nevertheless her arms moved in feverish haste wrapping one paper wisp after the other about the limbs of the figure standing on the table in front of her, and inclining now to the right, now to the left under her manipulations.