As she looked upon all this her heart sank again. She seemed to herself totally unworthy to step into those formal, peaceful regions. So she descended the three door steps and entered the profaner carriage entrance, where several labourers in white overalls were busily engaged covering the bare brick walls with highly veined marble stucco.
Men were at work in the yard as well. The round cobble stones with which it had once been paved were lying in heaps, and the ground was being covered with an ornate mosaic, of a light grey broken by white swirls and circles, like the flooring in ancient churches.
At the back of the yard rose the bald brick side of the factory, which also was undergoing changes in accordance with the general beautifying scheme. Up to about the second story the wall was being set with yellow and blue tiles. They looked gay and festive, and upon the completion of the repairs the old smoky court would have the appearance of a decorated salon.
"They're doing things here in great style," thought Lilly, growing even more timid.
To her left in a corner of the court she saw a building to which not a drop of the varnish being used on the other parts of the establishment had been applied. It stood there with bare, dun-colored plastered walls. Next to an extremely plain flight of iron steps was a metal plate inscribed "Office."
Lilly went up the iron steps and entered a badly lighted, dusty room divided in two by a wooden rail, on the farther side of which a half dozen young people were sitting at desks covered with spotted, threadbare felt. They all stared at her in astonishment. It did not occur to one of them to ask her what she wanted.
Evidently a person like herself had never before been seen in the place.
The group was turned to stone and did not regain animation until she drew her card from her gold brocade purse and silently laid it on the table. Then the six of them jumped up and tried to get possession of it. There came near being a row.
But one of them, a tall, straw-complexioned fellow, who seemed to have some authority, chased the others back to their seats with a few furtive nudges, and bowing and scraping, said to Lilly he would immediately go see whether Mr. Dehnicke--and with the card in his hand disappeared into a back room.