CHAPTER VII. FRAULEIN ROTTENMEIER SPENDS AN UNCOMFORTABLE DAY
When Heidi opened her eyes on her first morning in Frankfurt she
could not think where she was. Then she rubbed them and looked
about her. She was sitting up in a high white bed, on one side
of a large, wide room, into which the light was falling through
very, very long white curtains; near the window stood two chairs
covered with large flowers, and then came a sofa with the same
flowers, in front of which was a round table; in the corner was
a washstand, with things upon it that Heidi had never seen in her
life before. But now all at once she remembered that she was in
Frankfurt; everything that had happened the day before came back
to her, and finally she recalled clearly the instructions that
had been given her by the lady-housekeeper, as far as she had
heard them. Heidi jumped out of bed and dressed herself; then
she ran first to one window and then another; she wanted to see
the sky and country outside; she felt like a bird in a cage
behind those great curtains. But they were too heavy for her to
put aside, so she crept underneath them to get to the window. But
these again were so high that she could only just get her head
above the sill to peer out. Even then she could not see what she
longed for. In vain she went first to one and then the other of
the windows--she could see nothing but walls and windows and
again walls and windows. Heidi felt quite frightened. It was
still early, for Heidi was accustomed to get up early and run
out at once to see how everything was looking, if the sky was
blue and if the sun was already above the mountains, or if the
fir trees were waving and the flowers had opened their eyes. As a
bird, when it first finds itself in its bright new cage, darts
hither and thither, trying the bars in turn to see if it cannot
get through them and fly again into the open, so Heidi continued
to run backwards and forwards, trying to open first one and then
the other of the windows, for she felt she could not bear to see
nothing but walls and windows, and somewhere outside there must
be the green grass, and the last unmelted snows on the mountain
slopes, which Heidi so longed to see. But the windows remained
immovable, try what Heidi would to open them, even endeavoring
to push her little fingers under them to lift them up; but it was
all no use. When after a while Heidi saw that her efforts were
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