The wedding week and many other weeks and months passed, during which little occurred worthy to be recorded in our story. Almost every morning Annele laughed at Lenz for his astonishment over the loaf of fresh white bread which the landlady sent up daily from the town. It was not the delicacy that surprised him so much as the fact that persons should become dependent upon such things. Many luxuries that Lenz had considered only suitable for holidays were to Annele every-day necessities. She ridiculed his ignorance, which knew not how to double the comforts of life without increasing the expense; and a great improvement she certainly introduced into their way of living, baking better bread out of the same meal, and in all household matters bringing to pass much greater results with the same outlay. But, on the other hand, she was often discontented, and especially in the spring was apt to complain: "Dear me, how the wind blows up here! it is enough to take the roof off the house."
"I cannot help it, dear child. We get good fresh air to pay for it. Every breath we draw is like a draught of dew. Remember how you used to delight last autumn in our bright, cheerful sunshine, when the valley was shrouded in mist. And what good water we have too! People live to be old, ever so old, up here. As for the house, you need have no particle of concern for that. It is built of whole trunks of trees, and will stand for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren."
When the snow began to melt, and the usually empty gullies on the mountain-side were, to Lenz's great delight, filled with the rushing streams, Annele complained that she could not sleep for the noise of the water.
"You often complained in the winter of the deathly stillness up here,--that you could hear no wagon and see no passing; now you have noise enough." Annele gave her husband a sidelong glance, and, without answering, went into the kitchen, and had a good cry with Franzl. The old woman cautioned Lenz against contradicting his wife; it was not well for her or the child she bore.
Lenz was quiet and industrious, and took great pleasure in his work. Whenever he appealed to Annele to admire some tone that gave him peculiar satisfaction, she would answer: "O, it is nothing to me. I am really afraid your work will be the ruin of you; it will never repay you for the time you spend on it. The way to make a fortune is to turn off things quick, and not quiddle so over them."
"I know my own work best, Annele."
"If you know best, you have no need to talk to me. I can only speak according as I understand. If you want a post for a listener you had better go down to the doctor's and borrow one. There are plenty of painted red lips there that will speak never a word."
Days passed, and the spring that now broke in glory over the earth seemed to bring fresh life on the Morgenhalde. The landlady often came up and revelled in the good warm sun. The landlord, who had grown more of a growler than ever, seldom appeared. Annele openly withdrew herself more and more from her parents, and clung with increasing tenderness to Lenz. Of a Sunday morning or a holiday afternoon they often went together into the forest, where he had set up a bench among his father-in-law's trees. "Hark to that bird," said he, one day, as they were sitting there in a happy mood. "He is the true singer, caring nothing whether any hear him or not, but making music for himself and his mate, just as I do." And Lenz sent his voice blithely into the echoing wood.
"Yes," answered Annele, "and for that reason you ought to resign your place in the Liederkranz; it is no longer a fit society for you. As a bachelor you might keep company with Faller and the rest, if you chose, but for the head of a family it is not the thing. Besides, you are too old to sing."
"I old? Why, I am born new every spring. I was just fancying myself still a child, building a boat with my dead brother. How happy we were!"
"One would think your whole life had been a miracle. What do you mean by talking so?"
"You are right. I must learn to be old; I am almost as old as this forest. I remember, as a child, there were very few large trees here; most of the wood was of young saplings, and now it has grown high above our heads, and, thank Heaven, is our own."
"How our own? Has my father made it over to you?"
"No, it is still his,--that is, his with certain restrictions. He has no right to cut it wholly down, because it is all that keeps our house from being buried under the snow or the mountain itself."
"Don't talk so. What is it to me?"
"I don't understand you."
"Nor I you. You should not suggest such dreadful things to me now."
"Then I will sing to you, and let who will hear."
He took Annele's hand and, merrily singing, led her back to the house, where they arrived just in time to receive a visit from the landlord. He was evidently come upon business, for, taking his son-in-law into the inner room, he began at once. "Lenz, I can do you a good turn."
"That is well. A good turn never comes amiss."
"Is your money still with the bailiff?"
"He has paid me four hundred florins of it, but the greater part is still in his hands."
"Ready money is trumps now. You can make a good trade with it."
"I will give notice to the bailiff."
"That would take too long. Give me your note to sell, and I will guarantee you twenty-five per cent."
"Then we will go shares."
"It was foolish of you to say that. I had meant to give you the whole; but you are methodical in all your business matters, I see."
"Thank you, father-in-law, I like to be fair. I want no favors."
"Your best way would be to leave the money in my business, and let me hand you whatever interest it draws."
"I don't understand business. A regular percentage suits me better."
On returning to the sitting-room they found a nice lunch set out by Annele herself, but her father seemed in a great hurry to be gone, and would take nothing. "It is your own wine, father," Annele insisted. "Do sit a few minutes with us, we see so little of you."
There seemed no seat on the Morgenhalde broad enough to bear the whole weight of the landlord's dignity. He drank a glass standing, and then went down the hill, frequently pressing his hand on his breast-pocket as he went. "Father is particularly uncommunicative to-day," observed Annele.
"He has some pressing business on his mind. I have just given him my two thousand six hundred florins that the bailiff borrowed."
"And what did he give you in exchange?"
"I don't know what you mean; nothing. I will ask him for a written receipt some time, since that is the custom."
"If you had asked my advice, you would not have given him the money."
"Annele, what do you mean? I am sure I ought not to take amiss anything you say to me when you thus mistrust your own father. But, as Franzl says, we must be indulgent with you now, and let you have your own way."
"Indeed!" said Annele. "No one need be indulgent with me. What I said about my father meant nothing. I don't know how I came to say it. Franzl must go. It is she who sets you against me."
In vain Lenz defended poor Franzl, and protested she did nothing of the kind. Annele carried her point. In less than a fortnight the old woman had to leave the house. Lenz comforted her as well as he could, assuring her she should soon come back, and promising her a yearly sum as long as she lived. But she shook her head, and said, weeping, "The Lord God will soon put me beyond want. Never did I think to leave this house, where I have lived for eight and twenty years, till I was carried out. There are my pots, and my copper kettles, and my pans, and my tubs; how many thousand times I have taken them in my hand, and polished them up! They are my witnesses. No one can say I have not been neat and orderly. The nozzle of every pot, if it could speak, would tell who and what I have been. But God knows all. He sees what goes on in the great room, and in the kitchen, and in each of our hearts. That is my comfort and myviaticumand-- Enough; I am glad to get out of this place; rather would I spin thistles than stay here a day longer. I don't want to make you unhappy, Lenz. You might hunt me down like a rat before I would bring ill-will into the house. No, no, I will not do that. Have no anxiety about me; you have cares enough of your own. Gladly would I be crushed under the weight of them, if I could but take them from you, and bear them on my own shoulders. Have no fear for me. I shall go to my brother in Knuslingen. There was I born, and there will I wait till I die. If I join your mother in Paradise, I will tend upon her as she was used to being tended here. For her sake, our Lord God will admit me, and for her sake you shall still be blessed in this world. Good by; forgive me, if I have ever grieved you. Good by,--a thousand times good by!"
For some time after Franzl's departure Lenz continued silent and gloomy. All the higher did Annele's spirits rise in consequence. She was indeed a witch, who could do with him what she would. There was a magic in her tone, when she wished to please, that none could resist. Pilgrim used all his influence to reconcile Lenz to this new state of things. He tried to convince him that the old serving-woman had usurped a certain authority which prevented his wife from being mistress in her own house. Annele, in fact, had been brought up to take an active part in household work, and was much happier for having plenty to do. The care of such a little house, she said, was nothing to her, and she never meant to keep another maid. The apprentice must be called in to help. By the aid of his mother-in-law, however, Lenz finally succeeded in securing a new girl.
Matters how went on pleasantly and smoothly again till into the summer. Annele insisted upon her mother's obliging the landlord to pay Lenz back his money, and the father-in-law consequently appeared one day, and made Lenz an offer of the wood behind his house, in return for the money received, and for one thousand florins in addition. Lenz replied that he did not want the wood, but ready money, for which, however, he could very well afford to wait. No further steps were taken, except that the landlord, like the man of honor he was, gave a receipt, drawn up in due form, good in case of life or death.
Late in the summer, the usual quiet of the village was interrupted by two great events,--the marriage of the engineer with Bertha, the doctor's second daughter, the eldest choosing to remain single; and the return of the doctor's son, now a skilful clockmaker, from his studies abroad. It was said he meant to build a great clock-factory, not far from his father's house. A great outcry was raised among the native clockmakers, that they should be ruined if clocks were to be manufactured by machinery, as they were in America. Lenz took the matter quietly, and, with the schoolmaster, spared no pains to carry into operation his long-cherished plan of uniting the workmen in one common association. Perhaps necessity would compel them to a step of which they had not been able or willing before to see the advantages. The two spent whole days in going from house to house, explaining the standard regulator. They recommended the adoption of five different sizes, which would be quiet sufficient to show all the variety of works. Nothing but a division of labor could save the workpeople. The axles, wheels, and springs, and more especially the stoppers and screws, could be made cheaper and better by machinery, while the adjustments of the parts and the finishing touches must always be left to the hand of a master. Human understanding and thought are indispensable to the proper arranging and harmonizing of the whole. He urged the clockmakers either to contribute a share to the new manufactory or to set up one of their own. But he found idle complaints instead of active co-operation. Every one insisted on keeping to his old ways, thinking he understood best his own interests, and unwilling to risk them for the sake of the common good.
Lenz came home discouraged, only to be received by his wife with reproaches: "For Heaven's sake, stop setting up ninepins for other men to knock down. Let others alone; they don't trouble themselves about you. You would like to oil everybody's doors, that they should not creak, though no one's teeth are set on edge by them but your own."
Lenz smiled at his wife's sharp comparisons. No sooner had he relinquished his plan for the good of his fellow-workmen than she began urging him to set up a manufactory in company with her father. He could go abroad a year, if necessary, she said, and she would spend the time with her parents. Lenz maintained that he was not suited for such an undertaking, and, moreover, would certainly not travel now that he was a married man, after staying at home through his bachelor life. Annele took small satisfaction in his assurances that she might set her mind quite at rest as to the future, as he should never fail to make a comfortable living, in which assurances he was fully borne out by Pilgrim. Pilgrim, therefore, she regarded as the chief obstacle in Lenz's path to fortune,--a man who had never accomplished anything himself, and never would; and she used all the means in her power, though without success, to breed discord between the two friends.
Annele carried a perfect ledger in her head, so constantly was she revolving figures and plans. Knowing that Lenz had been Faller's security for the purchase of his house, she now teased him to withdraw his name. So strongly did she insist, that he was fairly obliged to consent, and had entered Faller's house for the purpose of announcing his determination, when he was met by his old comrade with a face half rueful and half laughing, and told of the arrival of a second pair of twins. "The little creatures know I am mad on the subject of children, and so come to me in couples." Of course Lenz could not increase the young father's anxieties by withdrawing his security at such a time, and was obliged to return an evasive answer to his wife's inquiries as to the result of his visit.
On the night before the marriage of the engineer with the doctor's daughter Annele gave birth to a son. As Lenz was standing by her bedside, full of his new happiness, she said: "Lenz, promise me one thing; promise me to break off all connection with Pilgrim, at least for three months."
"I can promise you nothing now," he answered, a bitter drop poisoning his cup of joy.
Annele was beside herself at hearing the music from the valley. So great was her excitement that her mother and husband trembled for her life. Towards noon, however, she fell into a quiet sleep. Lenz stopped up all the doors and windows, that every sound should be kept out. From this sleep she awoke more tranquil, and showed such patience and sweetness that Lenz was filled with twofold thankfulness for the happiness vouchsafed him as husband and father. It was wonderful how Annele's moods changed. In her present interval of tenderness she reminded her husband of their promise to Pilgrim that he should stand godfather, and expressed pleasure at the idea. Lenz was desirous that Petrovitsch should be second godfather; but the old man resolutely declined.
Pilgrim brought with him, and laid in the baby's cradle, a huge paper, containing a great number of signatures and illuminated by himself. It was a diploma of the Liederkranz, he said, making the new-comer, in virtue of his unquestionably good voice, an honorary member of that society.
"Do you know the sweetest tone in all the world?" asked Lenz,--"the first cry of one's child. Here is something else for you, my son. Take hold; see how he grasps it!" He put into the baby's little hand his father's file, as if for a special consecration; but Annele snatched it away.
"The child might kill itself with that sharp edge," she cried, and threw the instrument with such violence to the ground as to break off the point.
"There is my precious heirloom broken," said Lenz, sadly.
Pilgrim tried to console him, and declared, laughing, that there must ever be new men and new tools in the world. Annele said not a word.
"Come here a minute, Annele, I have something to show you."
"I have no time."
"Just look; it will amuse you. See, I have set two pendulums on these two clocks swinging different ways; one from right to left, the other from left to right. In a few days they will both swing together, either from right to left or the other way. The force of attraction that they exercise upon each other gradually brings them to an exact correspondence."
"I don't believe it."
"You will see it with your own eyes, and the same will be the case with us. We began, like the pendulums, to swing in opposite directions; but we shall have, like them, to come into harmony. To be sure, two pendulums never tick precisely together, so as to give but one tone. A Spanish king once went mad, trying to make them."
"What do I care for all your mad stories? You, apparently, have time for such nonsense; I have not."
In a few days the two pendulums swung together, but the hearts of husband and wife held each its own accustomed motion. There were times when that miracle of the one stroke which no work of human hand could accomplish seemed about to come to pass. But it was only seeming, and made the reality all the harder.
Lenz meant to be yielding, but in reality held fast to his old ways. Annele had no intention of making concessions. She knew better than her husband from the start; for had she not had experience in all the ways of the world? Had not men from all countries, old and young, rich and poor, told her from her childhood that her mind was as bright and clear as the day?
Annele's character might be concisely, though not perhaps quite accurately, described as superficial. She took life easily, was capable and active, with great fluency of speech, which she abundantly exercised; but when her chat was over she never gave a second thought to what she had said or heard.
Lenz's character was deep and solid; but cautious even to timidity. He handled the world like a piece of delicate machinery, treating even the most indifferent concerns with the conscientious exactitude of his trade,--or his art, as he preferred to call it.
Annele, when nothing was going on about her, had nothing to say; while Lenz's communicativeness increased with the quiet of his life. Whenever Lenz talked, he stopped working; Annele, on the contrary, kept both tongue and hands busy at the same moment.
Annele liked to tell her dreams; and wonderful dreams she had,--such as driving in a beautiful carriage, drawn by superb horses, through a magnificent country, with the merriest of companions; and every other minute she would exclaim, "Dear me, what a good time we had!" Or she had dreamed she was the landlady of a great hotel, and kings and princes had driven up to her door, to all of whom she had given a ready answer. Lenz cared nothing for dreams, and did not like to hear her relate them.
Annele, from the time of her getting up in the morning to her going to bed at night, was always neatly and prettily dressed, and liked to have Lenz often praise her for it; but he had a trick, which seemed to her foolish and tiresome, of repeating the same thing in the same words hundreds and hundreds of times, with the impression every time that it was an idea he had never thought of before. His habits of mind were somewhat like those of external nature, which gives an ever new freshness to the same garment; or, like those of his handiwork, which require what has been done a hundred times before to be labored over again with equal pleasure and exactness. Annele wanted Lenz to keep himself always nicely dressed as she did; but he bestowed too much attention on his work to have any thought left for his person.
Lenz, in the morning, could hardly speak a word. It took some time for his faculties to wake up. He would dream with his eyes open, even over his work, and never became fully aroused till quite into the day. Annele, on the contrary, the moment she opened her eyes, was like a soldier at his post, armed and equipped. She attacked the day's work with animation, and hated all half and half states of body and mind. Always neat and nimble, as became a landlord's daughter, she had everything, even to a dish of chat, in readiness for guests, come at what hour of the morning they would. At the bustle she made Lenz often raised his eyes to his mother's picture, as if to say, Don't let your calmness be ruffled; this snapping of whips is her delight.
If Annele watched him at his work, he became infected with her disquiet, turned over and over some piece he had just finished, or was finishing, feeling her impatient look upon him all the while, hearing her dissatisfied expressions at his slowness, and growing himself impatient and dissatisfied. It was an unwholesome companionship.
Little William throve excellently on the Morgenhalde, and when soon a little sister was running about with him, the house was as noisy as if the wild huntsman and his train were driving through it. If Lenz ventured to complain of the uproar, Annele answered sharply: "To have quiet a man needs to be rich, and live in a castle, where the princes can be quartered in a separate wing."
"I am not rich," answered Lenz, smiling at the rebuke, yet smarting under it.
Only in the same atmosphere or at an equal distance from the centre of the earth can two pendulums make the same number of vibrations in a given time.
Lenz became every day more quiet and reserved. Whenever he and his wife talked together, he was filled with amazement at the many words she used about every little thing. If he said in the morning, "The mist is heavy to-day," she would reply, in her animated manner, "Yes, remarkably so for the season. Still it may come out pleasant. There is no prophesying about the weather up here in the mountains. Every one judges according to his own desires. One hopes it will rain, another that it will be clear, as each has different projects on foot. If the Lord tried to arrange the weather to suit all tastes, he would have his hands full. Like that magician--" Here would come a story, and, on the end of that, another, and still others. This was her way of running on upon every conceivable subject, as if she were entertaining a teamster while his horse was eating in the stall, or beguiling the anxiety of a hurried guest, who had ordered dinner, and would have some time yet to wait, in spite of the quickly laid cloth and plates.
Lenz shrugged his shoulders, and relapsed into perfect silence, which lasted sometimes for days. "What a tiresome, unsocial companion you are!" his wife often said, at first good-naturedly, then sharply. He smiled at the rebuke, yet it wounded him.
The fears entertained of the manufactory were not realized; on the contrary, a fresh impetus was given to domestic industry. The manufactory confined itself at first to the casting of zinc dial-plates, which found a ready market. Lenz quite prided himself on having foretold that such would be the case, and received many compliments on his sagacity. His wife alone refused to see anything praiseworthy in it. Of course a man should be the best judge of matters connected with his own business. "Nevertheless," she added, "the engineer and the doctor's son will grow rich while the clockmakers think themselves lucky to be allowed to keep on in their former ruts. Old Pröbler is the best of you, after all; he does at least try to invent something new."
Whatever else went wrong, Lenz was happy in his work. "When I get up in the morning," he said to Annele, "and think of the day's honest work that lies before me, and the satisfaction of seeing it prosper in my hands, I feel a perpetual sunshine within me."
"You are a good hand at preaching; you ought to have been a parson," said Annele, thinking, as she left the room, There is a good home-thrust for you. We are all to listen to you; but as for what any of us may say, that is of no consequence whatever.
Not to be revenged on his wife, but from sheer forgetfulness, Lenz often at table, after she had been telling some long story, would suddenly say, as if just waking up: "I beg your pardon; I have not heard a word you have been saying, my head is so full of that beautiful melody! If I could only make it sound as I hear it! That change to the minor key is wonderful."
Annele smiled, but never forgave the slight he thus put upon her.
The pendulums swung more and more determinedly each in its own direction.
Formerly, when Lenz returned home from the foundry, or the locksmith's, or from any excursion, his mother always sat by him while he ate, and listened with delight to all he had to tell. The glass of beer he had drunk abroad she relished again at home; the kindly greetings he had received awoke fresh gratitude in her loving heart. Every incident he related was of importance, for it had happened to him. But now, when he came home, Annele had no time to sit by him; or if she did, and he began to relate his experiences, she would say: "What is all that to me? I don't care a pin about it. People may live as they like, for aught I care. They give me none of their happiness, and their unhappiness I don't want. You and they get on finely together; they have only to wind you up, and you play to everybody, like one of your musical clocks."
Lenz laughed, remembering that Pilgrim had once called him an eight-day clock, because he was always wound up fresh on Sundays. Through the week he gave himself no rest, and therefore welcomed all the more gladly the Sunday holiday. When the sun shone bright, he often exclaimed: "Thank God, thousands and thousands of human beings are rejoicing at this beautiful Sunday!"
"You act as if you were the Lord God himself, and had the whole world to look after," was Annele's response, which taught him to keep such thoughts henceforth to himself. If he wanted Annele to go with him of a Sunday to a meeting of the various musical societies in a neighboring village, or simply to join Faller and his wife in a walk up the valley, the answer always was: "You are at liberty, of course, to go where you will. It makes no difference to a man what company he keeps; but I shall not go with you. I rank myself too high for that. Faller and his wife are not fit society for me. You can go, of course; I have not the slightest objection."
Naturally, Lenz also gave up the excursion, and stayed at home, or went to the Lion,--in either place showing more ill-temper than the occasion at all warranted.
Lenz had never had in his hand a card or a ninepin ball,--those consumers of time and low spirits. "I wish I did take pleasure, as others do, in cards and ninepins," he said, innocently, quite unprepared for Annele's sharp retort: "it does a man good to play, if he only comes back the fresher to his business. Games are certainly better than playing with one's work."
The pendulums swung more and more determinedly each in its own direction.
Lenz sold the greater part of his stock on hand at good prices, but the work he had undertaken for his father-in-law did not advance satisfactorily. He could not help sometimes complaining to Annele that this or that part of it disappointed him; whereupon she tried to convince him that he did not give sufficient heed to his profits.
"Customers want the most work in the shortest time, but you make every little thing a part of your religion. You are a dreamer,--a dreamer in broad daylight. Do wake up! for pity's sake, wake up!"
"Good Heavens! I live in a perpetual turmoil. My sleep is no longer sleep; I might as well lie on a bed of nettles. If I could only have one good night's sleep again! I am so troubled that I start up every other minute. It seems to me my clothes are never off, day or night."
Instead of sympathizing with her husband, and inspiring him with fresh courage and self-reliance when he failed, Annele sought only to convince him of his utter unfitness to do anything for himself, and the necessity of his following her wiser counsels. When, on the other hand, he did a good thing, and could not help calling out to her, "Hark, what a beautiful tone!" she was very apt to answer: "I tell you honestly, I don't like such organ music. I heard that same piece in Baden-Baden a great deal better played."
Lenz had often said the same thing himself, had frankly acknowledged it to Pilgrim; but hearing it from Annele pained him, and spoiled the pleasure of his whole life's work.
Annele had a settled plan in her head, which, in her opinion, fully justified the course she was taking. She felt her best powers wasted in her present insignificant position. She longed to be earning something, and thought that keeping a hotel was the employment best suited for her capacities. In pursuance of this project, she changed her policy towards Pilgrim. Whereas she had formerly tried to breed dissension between him and her husband, she now determined to make him her confidant and ally. He had once told her it was a shame she was not a landlady; every one said she would give the Lion a fresh start. Pilgrim should now join her in urging Lenz to take charge of the Lion inn. He could, at the same time, pursue his art,--she called it art when she was good-natured, otherwise it was always trade,--either at the Lion or on the Morgenhalde,--perhaps better in the latter place, it being so much more quiet. A merchant often had his place of business even farther from his residence than the Morgenhalde was from the Lion.
When Pilgrim came, therefore, Annele received him most graciously. "Pray, light your pipe," she said, "I like the smell of it so much. It carries me back to my home."
You are indeed in a foreign atmosphere up here, thought Pilgrim; but he kept his thoughts to himself. When at length, after many circumlocutions, she disclosed her plan, Pilgrim declined all co-operation in it; and Lenz manifested an obstinacy and a disregard to both caresses and bursts of temper which she was quite unprepared for. "First you wanted to make me a dealer in clocks, and then a manufacturer," he said; "now it seems I am to be landlord of the Lion. What did you marry me for, if you want to make another man of me?"
Annele gave no direct answer, only saying, "Towards every one else you are as soft as butter, but to me hard as a flint."
Lenz looked upon himself as having a settled position in life; Annele was bent upon giving him one. She did not confess that she considered herself the more competent to support the family, but only wept and bemoaned her hard fate in never being allowed to make herself of use. She was not unreasonable; she wanted nothing but to be allowed to work, to earn something; and that little favor was denied her. Lenz told her that the garden used to be very profitable; she might work there. But she did not like gardening. The plants grew so slowly in the ground, making no sound, and never to be urged or hurried out of their appointed times; it was too tiresome waiting for them to come to anything. Three visits to the cellar, and three to the kitchen, would earn more than a garden could show in a whole summer. A woman could be hired by the day who would do quite well enough for that.
There was no end to the fretting and grieving and complaining at the stingy way in which they had to live. Lenz was often driven to the verge of despair, and flew into such fits of passion as to be hardly recognizable for the same man. Then he would bitterly repent of his violence, and assume a different tone towards his wife, telling her he was mortified to have the journeyman and apprentice see how they lived together; and that, if she did not leave him in peace, he should have to dismiss them both.
Annele laughed at the threats, which he was in no condition, as she thought, to put into execution. He proved his sincerity, however, by actually sending both apprentice and journeyman out of the house.
As long as Lenz's firm and quiet character had asserted itself, he maintained a certain influence over Annele; but when he came to fighting her on her own ground, which was, in itself, a confession of defeat, she gained a complete mastery, daily upbraiding him with being a do-little, who had turned his assistants out of the house from sheer laziness, and whose good-nature was nothing but incapacity.
Instead of laughing at such absurd charges, Lenz brooded over them for days together, as he sat at his work, and allowed them to assume colossal proportions, long after they had faded from Annele's recollection. Her isolated life began to seem to her like a rainy Sunday in summer, when she had put on her holiday clothes, in the reasonable expectation of enjoying herself, and having a merry time with her friends, and found, instead, the road impassable, and herself a prisoner at home. It shall not be so, I will not live in this way, was the constant cry in her heart. She grew suspicious and irritable, taking offence at every trifle, yet never confessed to her husband or herself the true cause of her discontent.
Lenz was driven to seek comfort out of his own home. The fact of his going abroad did not vex Annele so much as the manner of his doing it. He hung about so long before leaving the house, and, after having gone, would come back two and three times, as if he had forgotten something. He could not bear to go away with feelings in his heart which made him almost a stranger to himself. He hoped Annele would try to detain him, or would at least speak a kind word to restore him to himself. In his mother's lifetime, he never started on a long journey without her giving him a piece of bread from the cupboard to save him from temptation, as she said, while a better safeguard than any loaf was the kind word spoken from her heart. Now he had to go as if neither the house nor himself were his own. Therefore it was that he trifled away so much time without being able to tell what he wanted. There is no virtue in a thing asked for; the true blessing lies only in a free gift, voluntarily--almost unconsciously--offered and received.
Long before the working hours were over, Lenz would often be sitting at Pilgrim's, and Annele with her parents. The whole house seemed out of joint. Lenz said not a word to Pilgrim of the grief that was inwardly consuming him, while Annele poured her complaints into unsympathizing ears. Her parents appeared entirely absorbed in their own affairs.
Lenz spent much time, too, at Faller's, where he was almost happier than at Pilgrim's. The grateful couple greeted him with joy and respect, and honored him like the Lenz of former days. At home he had long ceased to be anybody.
Faller and his wife lived harmoniously together, each thoroughly convinced that the other was the most admirable being in the world. If they only could be once out of debt, and have a little money over, they would astonish the world. As it was, they toiled and scraped, and were always cheerful. Faller enlivened himself and his wife, as he sat at work over the machinery of his big clocks,--for he was not a sufficiently skilful workman to undertake the more delicate timepieces,--with tales of his barrack life, and the different plays he and his comrades enacted in varied and gorgeous costumes. Mrs. Faller proved a most gracious public. In her loving eyes her husband was actually clothed with the royal mantles, the crowns, and the diamonds he so vividly described. How dismal seemed Lenz's own life in comparison! Ever darker and darker grew the shadows in his soul. His every experience was changed into bitterness and sorrow.
When he was present, as he sometimes could not help being, at the meetings and rehearsals of the Liederkranz, and sang the songs of love, of longing, of blissful rapture, his heart within him cried: Is this true? is it possible? were any human beings ever so happy, so blessed? Yet you yourself were so once. He called for soberer, sadder songs, and startled his comrades by the pathos of his voice, which sounded like the wail of a breaking heart. Whereas in former days he could never get singing enough, now he soon tired of it, and wanted to stop, or took offence at a word, and the next moment was as hasty in begging his comrade's forgiveness, when there was nothing to forgive.
He recovered his self-possession at times, and, trying to believe that the sole cause of his discontent was want of industry, would labor diligently at his old tasks; but no blessing crowned his toil. The day often found him undoing what he had spent half the night in completing. His hand was unsteady. Even his father's file, which had been repointed, and whose touch had never failed to quiet him, lost its efficacy. The machinery which had required a whole day to make and put together he would pull to pieces in a fit of discontent, only to find that it had been good work, perfectly adjusted, but seeming discordant because of the discord within him.
He often put his hand to his head, as if trying to recall something which had escaped him. The consciousness--if we may so express it--had vanished out of his work,--that power by virtue of which many things had seemed to do themselves with no effort of his will. Indignant at his own inertness, he compelled himself to something like repose and interest in his work. If you lose that, he reasoned with himself, all is lost. You were once happy with only your art, you must learn again to find in that your sole happiness. You can listen to a piece of music when other noises are going on, you can distinguish the one sound from the others; so here you must be absorbed in your own work, and not heed the tumult about you. If you insist on not hearing it, you will not hear it. Let your will but be resolute.
Lenz really succeeded in settling down to his work again quietly and methodically. Only one thing he missed,--one little sentence that Annele might have spoken: "Thank Heaven you are once more content to be at home!" He had thought he could do without such encouragement, but he could not. It was often on Annele's lips, only her pride kept it back. Why should I praise him for doing his duty? it said. Now is the time for having our hotel. He works best when no one is about to watch him; with him at his work-bench and me in the public room all would be well.
Lenz worked twice as hard as he used to to accomplish the same amount. Never before had he known that work was wearisome, but now the evenings found him tired and spent. Yet he allowed himself no respite. All might be lost, all hope of having a home again, if he ventured to leave his house or his bench.
For weeks he did not enter the village, while Annele was much with her parents.
A fatality at length forced him from home. Pilgrim fell dangerously ill, and night after night Lenz sat by his bedside. A painful duty it was, for not even this act of friendship escaped the poison of Annele's tongue. "Your attentions to Pilgrim," she said, "are only a cloak for your lazy, slipshod ways. You flatter yourself you have been doing something in the world, while you have been doing nothing and are nothing. You are a regular do-little."
His breath came short as she spoke, and there fell a stone upon his heart, which nevermore departed, but lay there like a dead weight.
"You will tell me next that I ill-treated my mother; that is the only unjust taunt you have not cast at me."
"You did; I know you did. Your cousin Toni, who went to America, has told us a thousand times that you were the greatest hypocrite in the world, and that he often and often had to make peace between your mother and you."
"You only say that to drive me mad again, but I care nothing for your words. Why do you choose a man in America for your witness? Why not some one here? You only want to goad me. Good night."
He passed the night with Pilgrim, who was now recovering, and of course happy in the feeling of returning health. Not wishing to sadden him, Lenz listened patiently to his accounts of the experiences his illness had brought him. "I came to understand how a bird can keep forever twittering on two notes. There is a state between sleeping and waking in which one tone is all-sufficient. For four weeks only a couple of words have been running in my head. Man has no wings beside his two lungs, and with one lung I can eat potatoes for seventy-seven years. If I had been a bird, I should have kept piping: One lung, two lungs, two lungs, one lung, just like a hedge-sparrow."
Few were the tones ringing in Lenz's heart, but they were too sad for any human ear.
"The Bible," continued Pilgrim, cheerily, "has been my helper again, and has firmly decided me to live a single life. There it is plainly said that in the beginning man was alone upon the earth, woman was never alone; from which it follows that man is able to live by himself."
Lenz smiled, but the words smote him.
Sad, pale, and worn with watching, he went home the next morning to his work, and said, when the children met him at the door, "I hardly knew I had any children."
"Of course not; you forget them, like everything else," replied Annele. He once more felt the stab at his heart, but it scarcely pained him now.
"Mother, dear mother!" he cried, gazing at his mother's picture, "you too she has outraged. Can you not speak? Do not punish her,--pray God not to punish her! The penalty would fall on my head and on my poor children! Help me, dear mother; testify for me, that she may cease to wring my heart! Help me, dear mother! You know what I am."
"A great strong man like you begging! I won't listen to your nonsense," said Annele, going into the kitchen, and taking the two children with her.
The cord was strained almost to breaking.
On the sultry evening of a sultry day, the landlord, in an open wagon, drawn by his two bay horses, was returning from a drive to the city. He looked about him to the right and left in a strange way as he entered the village, and saluted with great affability. The wagon drew up before the door of the Lion. Gregory, who, in his postilion's uniform, but without his horn, had been driving, dismounted, and began to unharness the horses. Still the landlord sat motionless in the wagon, looking thoughtfully from the inn to the horses, and again from the horses back to the inn. At last, with a deep sigh, he descended, and stood on the ground. It was the last time he should so drive. All was as it had been, and only one other beside himself knew what a change was coming.
Wearily he dragged himself up the steps, at the top of which his wife was waiting for him. "How do matters stand?" she asked, softly.
"All has been arranged," answered the landlord, pushing by her into the public room, without entering the parlor first, as was his custom on returning home. He handed his hat and cane to the maid, and, sitting down with the guests who were present, ordered supper to be brought him at the public table. When it came, however, he appeared to have no relish for it.
The company did not break up till late into the night, and he remained sitting with the last. He spoke little, but his mere presence was compliment and entertainment enough.
His wife had gone to bed, and was sound asleep long before he retired to rest. Rest, indeed, he did not find. An invisible power drew the pillows from under his head. This bed, this house, everything, would to-morrow be no longer his! His thoughts lingered most lovingly about the carriage and the two bay horses. Suddenly the bays seemed to have entered the chamber; he rubbed his eyes; there they were, stretching their heads over the bed, and glaring at him with their great eyes; he felt their hot breath on his face. Recovering his self-possession, he comforted himself with the thought that he had, at least, borne himself like a man. He had said nothing to his wife, but let her have a quiet night's sleep. To-morrow morning would be soon enough for her to learn the news, even to-morrow after breakfast. Trials are easier to bear in the broad sunlight, after a night's sleep and a-good breakfast.
When the daylight came, the landlord was tired, and begged his wife not to wait for him, but to take her breakfast alone. At last he appeared, seemed to be in excellent appetite, and, on his wife urging him to explain what arrangement had been made, finally confessed: "Wife, I have allowed you to have a quiet night and comfortable morning; now show yourself brave, and take whatever comes quietly and calmly. At this very hour my lawyer in the city is proclaiming me bankrupt."
The landlady sat for a time stiff and speechless. "Why did you not tell me last night?" she asked, at length.
"From kindness to you, that you might have a quiet night's rest."
"Kindness? You stupid blockhead! If you had told me last night, we might have sent off many an article that would stand us in stead for years to come. Now, in this broad daylight, it is too late. Here! here! help! help!" she cried, breaking from her quiet conversational tone into frightful screams, and sinking, half fainting, in her chair. The maids from the kitchen, and Gregory, the postilion, came rushing in. The landlady raised herself, and cried, in the most piteous tones: "You deceived me; you never told me you were near being bankrupt. On your head be all the sorrow and the shame. I am innocent! Unhappy woman that I am!"
It would now have been the landlord's turn to fall into a fainting fit, had not his strength of body and mind supported him. His spectacles fell of themselves from his forehead to his eyes, that he might plainly behold the farce that was acting before him. This woman, who had given him no peace till he, the successful baker and brewer, joined her brother in the clock business, and who, when his brother-in-law died, had almost compelled him to continue the business alone, although he had no proper understanding of it; this woman, who had been constantly goading him on to new enterprises, and knew his affairs almost better than he did himself,--this woman had now called in the common servants to bear witness that he alone was guilty, and that on him alone must fall the blame.
One moment revealed to the unhappy landlord the whole extent of his misery. Five and thirty years it stretched behind him, and forward--how far, none could tell. To save herself, to expose him, his wife had carried her hypocrisy to this extremity.
His glasses grew dim with moisture; he could see no more. Quietly he passed his handkerchief first over them and then over his eyes. From that moment a rancor that never softened struck its roots into his heart; but his pride presented the same quiet, unruffled front.
"You have your own reasons for acting thus," he said, when the postilion and maids had left the room. "They are beyond my finding out. I shall say no more upon the matter." And he kept his word. His wife might talk and lament as she would, she could not move him out of his silence. It almost entertained him to see what a fine face she could assume before the world. He grew to be almost the sage he had been taken for. It is wonderful what woman can do, he thought, as he watched his wife's manœuvres. Practice certainly makes perfect.
The unwise world, however, did not accept the landlord's fall so patiently. Like a thunder-clap the report spread over mountain and valley, The landlord is bankrupt! Incredible! impossible! What can stand if the landlord of the Lion falls?
Even the golden lion on the sign seemed to protest against it, and creaked angrily on its supporting hinges. But auctioneers subdue even lions, and make no account of a coat of gilding. The sign was taken down. Most pitiable the lion looked with one eye hidden by the wall, and the other seeming to blink wearily, as if it, too, would fain close for grief and shame.
There was a crash in the village below, and there was a crash above on the Morgenhalde.
Lenz hurried down into the town, and back again to the inn. The landlord kept walking solemnly up and down the great public room, saying, with dignity: "This, too, must I bear like a man,"--like a man of honor, he had almost said.
The landlady wrung her hands, and cried that she had known nothing of it all, that she was ready to kill herself.
"Father-in-law," said Lenz, "is my money lost too?"
"In the common pile, there is no distinguishing one man's money from another's," answered the landlord, oracularly. "But a compromise can be made. Give me three years, and I will pay fifty per cent. Take a seat. There is no use wringing your hands. Lisbeth!" he called out into the kitchen, "my dinner!" The cook brought in a regular dinner, such as was served on ordinary days. Mine host took off his cap, put it on his head again, settled himself comfortably in his arm-chair, poured out some water, and began to eat, with the composure of true wisdom. "Draw up a chair, wife," he said, looking up from his second plateful. "These are the best horses for pulling up a steep hill; a good piece of meat in your stomach is a great help on a hard journey. Has all the wine been sealed, or can you get me a draught?"
"It is all sealed."
"Then let me have a cup of strong coffee to wind up with; there is comfort in that."
Lenz pressed his hands to his head. Was he out of his senses? Can this man, in whose fall the fate of hundreds is involved, be actually sitting down, with a good appetite, to his dinner? The landlord was condescendingly talkative, and bestowed high commendations upon Annele for not rushing down too, and swelling the chorus of senseless lamentations. "You have a clever, capable wife,--the cleverest of all my children. It is a pity she is not a man, to turn her enterprise to account. The world would look up if she were at the head of affairs. My Annele ought to be the mistress of a great establishment, a great public-house; she would make it the first in the country."
Lenz was indignant at these ready compliments, and at the landlord's whole bearing in such an hour as this. But he fought down his anger, and the very struggle made his voice sound hesitating, almost submissive, as he said: "Father-in-law, take care, above all things, that the wood behind my house shall not be cut down. I have heard axes at work there the whole morning, which must not be."
"Why not?" cried the landlord, with all the more vehemence for Lenz's meekness. "Why not? Whoever owns the wood has the right to do with it what he will."
"Father-in-law, you promised me the wood."
"But you did not take it. The wood is sold to the lumber-merchant from Trenzlingen."
"You had no right to sell it; it is the roof of my house. A few trees can perhaps be cut down, but not the whole forest. That has been the agreement for a hundred years. My grandfather has often told me so."
"It is none of my business. I have other things to attend to now."
"Good Heavens!" cried Lenz, with tears, "what have you done? You have robbed me of the dearest possession I had in the world."
"Indeed! Is money everything? I did not know that your heart, too, was in your breeches pocket."
"No, no! not that. You have robbed me of my second parents."
"I should think you were big enough to stand alone. But you are that sort of fellow that when he is a grandfather will cry out for his mother, 'Mamma! mamma! your little boy is hurt!' You said once you were a man, but what a man! One that can establish a union in which all shall stand by each other like the trees in a forest,--a forest of miserable clockmakers! Ha, ha! Go on with your union, then, that shall take care of yourself and the rest of your set." This malice was a new feature of the landlord's character.
Lenz was the only one of his creditors that placed himself in the breach, and upon his head broke the full force of the ruined man's fury.
Lenz grew red and pale by turns; his lips trembled. "Father-in-law," he said, "you are the grandfather of my children. You know how much you have robbed them of. I would not have your conscience. But the wood must not be cut down. I shall go to law about it."
"Very well; do as you like," returned the landlord as he poured out his coffee. Lenz could stay in the room no longer.
On the stone bench before the inn sat Pröbler, a wretched object, forcing every passer-by to hear his story. He was waiting, he said, for the arrival of the officers, because his best work, containing all his inventions, had been pledged to the landlord, and was now in the house. It must not be sold, and sent out into the world for every one to copy and cheat him out of his profits. The officers must get him a patent from government which should make him a rich and famous man. Lenz used all his influence to pacify the poor old fellow, assuring him that he was the only one whom the landlord had treated honestly; that he had already received the full value of his works, all of which were utterly unsalable and still on his patron's hands; that they had not been pawned at all, but sold outright. Pröbler, however, was neither to be reasoned out of his belief nor induced to stir from his place.
Lenz went on, having enough to do in looking after his own affairs. He hastened to his uncle Petrovitsch. "Did I not tell you so?" was the old man's triumphant greeting. "Did I not tell you here in this very room, when you asked me to further your suit for Annele, that the landlord was in debt for the velvet cap on his head and the boots on his feet? Here he has been all this while filling his big paunch with other men's goods."
"Yes, yes, uncle, you were quite right, you foretold it all; but now help me."
"There is no help possible."
Lenz told of the forest, and the circumstances connected with it.
"Perhaps something can be done in that direction," said Petrovitsch.
"Thank Heaven! If I could but get the forest!"
"That is out of the question; the wood is sold. But it can only be cleared, not destroyed. It is the safeguard of your house, and no one has a right to remove it. We will show the wood-flayer from Trenzlingen who is master."
"O God, my house!" cried Lenz. It seemed already falling in; he must be at home to save it.
"Your house? You don't seem to be much at home here certainly," said Petrovitsch, laughing at his own wit. "Go to the mayor and enter a protest. One thing more, Lenz; I never in my life again will believe in a human being. I told you then your wife was the only honest one in the house. You see I was not mistaken in the other two. But Annele knew of this all along. She has known for years, known to a certainty, the state of her father's affairs. You were the make-shift, because the doctor's son-in-law would not have her, luckily for him."
"Why do you tell me this now, uncle?"
"Why? because it is true. I can prove it by witnesses."
"But why now?"
"Is there any time when the truth should not be told? I thought you and your Pilgrim were such heroes of romance! But I tell you you were very nearly as poor as you could be before you lost your money; for a man so full of complaints and regrets has ever a hole in his pocket. You are always crying for what you did yesterday, and thinking, 'O poor me! and yet I meant so well!' A man who wants to be pitied is no man; only women beg for pity."
"You are hard upon me, uncle."
"Because you are so tender with yourself. Show yourself now a man. Do not visit this upon your wife. Deal gently with her; her sorrow is greater than yours."
"You think so?"
"Yes. It will be hard for proud Annele of the Lion to find that a greeting from her is no longer the honor it used to be."
"She is not Annele of the Lion now; she is my wife."
"She is, before God and man. It was your own choice; I warned you."
Lenz hurried to the doctor's, who, as we have said, also filled the office of mayor; he was not at home. Thorns beset him on every side. His friends were not to be found, and his enemies let out all their secret venom against him, choosing his moment of helplessness to mock and torture him. He hastened up the hill again, past his house and into the wood beyond, where he ordered the wood-cutters to stop their work.
"Will you pay us our day's wages?"
"Yes."
"All right." They shouldered their axes and went home.
In the house Lenz found Annele embracing the children, and crying: "O my poor children! You will have to beg your bread, poor little ones!"
"Not while I have life and health. I am the head; only be calm and pleasant!"
"I have never been otherwise. You are mistaken, if you think that, because my father has failed, I am going to crawl at your feet, and let you do what you will with me. Not a bit of it! I don't give way an inch. Now show your boasted good-nature! Now show how you can support your wife."
"I am most ready to; but how give to one with closed hands?"
"If you had taken my advice, and bought the Lion, we should have been provided for, and the house would not have passed into strange hands. Don't tell me a word about the money. Exactly where you are sitting now you were sitting that day, and I here, and there stood the glass close to the edge of the table,--so close that I pushed it further in. Do you remember? I said to you then plainly and honestly, a business man never gives his money in that careless way, even to his own father."
"Did you know as long ago as that how matters stood?"
"I knew nothing, nothing at all; I only know what is business-like. Now let me alone."
"Will you not go to your mother? She is grieving sorely."
"Why should I go to her? to have her set out crying again at sight of me? Do you suppose I am going down there to be stared at and commiserated by everybody? to hear the doctor's charming daughters sing and laugh as I go by? I am sufficient for myself here in my solitude: I need no one."
"Perhaps it is all for the best," said Lenz, consolingly; "perhaps from this day you will be happier and better alone here with me. Such days may, must come again as those when you said, 'Up here we are in heaven, and may leave the world to drive and bustle as it will.' Let us hold to that. We were happy once, and shall be again. If you will be but kind and loving, I will do the work of three. Have no fear; I did not marry you for your money."
"Neither did I marry you for your money; it would not have been worth the trouble. If riches had been my object, I might have chosen a very different husband."
"We have lived together too long to be talking of marrying," interposed Lenz. "Let us have dinner."
At table he related the affair of the wood. "Do you know what the result will be?" asked Annele.
"What?"
"Nothing but your having to pay the wood-cutters' wages."
"That remains to be proved," said Lenz, and immediately after dinner went again in search of the mayor, whom he had failed to find earlier in the day.
On the way he was joined by poor Faller, pale as death, and crying: "Oh, this is horrible, horrible! A thunder-bolt from a clear sky!"
Lenz tried to reassure him. Two and a half thousand florins was something of a loss, to be sure, but he hoped to stand under it. He thanked his faithful comrade for his sympathy.
"What!" cried Faller, stopping short on the road, "are you involved too? He owes me thirty-one florins. He had that amount of mine in good clocks, that I left with him as I should have left them in the bank, meaning to pay off an instalment upon my house. Now I am put back at least two years."
Lenz hurried on. He could not stop with his friend, but must be off to the mayor's.
Faller looked sadly after him, almost forgetting his own misfortune in that of his friend.
The doctor was shocked at the blow which had fallen on the landlord. His own loss was insignificant, but he felt the disastrous effect the failure would have on the whole district. The news of Lenz's loss filled him with consternation. "Has he involved you also in his ruin? Nothing now will surprise me. Is it possible? is it possible? How does your wife bear it?" he asked, after a pause.
"She lays it all at my door."
Lenz brought up the matter of the forest, and prayed for speedy help, that his house might not be exposed to the force of the storms, and perhaps be buried by the mountain itself. The doctor acknowledged he had right on his side. "To make a clean sweep of the forest would be an injury to the whole district; perhaps destroy utterly our best spring of water, that by the church, which is fed from the forest. Some of the trees, at least, should be left standing on the crest of the mountain, but I fear we are powerless to insist upon it. It is a great misfortune that the owners are at liberty to cut down the trees at their pleasure. To try to make a law against it now, however, would be the old story of locking the barn door when the cow has escaped."
"But, Mr. Mayor, I shall be the first victim. Is there no help for me?"
"Hardly, I fear. At the time that the restrictions on the tenure of land were removed, during the mayoralty of your father-in-law, the authorities neglected to protect your rights as well as those of the community. You may say, to be sure, that nobody would have built a house where yours stands, if the forest behind it could be cleared; but you have no legal document guaranteeing you its permanent shelter. Your only chance is to lay your case before the court. Perhaps something can yet be done. I will give you a paper that may be of service."
Lenz felt his strength forsaking him. He could hardly stir from the spot, but the case admitted of no delay. No cost must be spared. He hired a wagon, and drove to the city.
At the Morgenhalde, meanwhile, appeared in gorgeous attire an almost forgotten figure. The shopkeeper's wife from the next village, that cousin Ernestine whom Annele had so mercilessly ridiculed on the occasion of her first drive with Lenz, now came to call on her, resplendent in a new silk gown, and a gold watch hanging at her waist. She had been in the village to put some money in the bank, being, she was happy to say, very well off. Her husband was doing a good business in rags, besides being a real-estate broker and the agent of a fire and hail insurance company, whose beautifully printed advertisements were at all the shop windows, and which paid him a regular salary without exposing him to any risks. She had been collecting some back pay, and could not find it in her heart to be in Annele's neighborhood without coming up to see her.
Annele politely expressed her thanks, and regretted she had no entertainment to offer. Ernestine protested that it was not for that she had come.
"I believe you there," said Annele, meaningly. She was convinced that Ernestine had come to be revenged upon her, to witness the rage and jealousy of that Annele who had always asserted such superiority over her poorer cousin. But Annele was woman of the world enough to ward off the malice of her visitor with a few stereotyped phrases of politeness, and at the same time to maintain the proper distance between herself, the child of the Golden Lion, and a poor relation who had only lived in the house as her servant, by giving Ernestine to understand that certain employments which were perfectly respectable and profitable for some persons were for others entirely out of the question.
In truth it was not without a certain feeling of malicious exultation that Ernestine had ascended the Morgenhalde. Her fingers often closed with satisfaction on the bag she carried on her arm, in which were a pound of burnt coffee and a pound of sugar for Annele. But at the sight of her cousin her exultation melted into sincere compassion. All the humble deference of former days returned upon her at Annele's assumption of her old superiority. The silk gown and gold watch were utterly forgotten, and the coffee and sugar offered only as samples in the hope of gaining her cousin's custom. If the many whom the Lion had benefited would now only return the favors they had received, Annele's parents would have enough to live upon for a hundred years to come, she said, with heartfelt tears; and added cordially that, if Annele had but married and remained at the Lion, the house would still have been kept up in the good old way.
This praise was more than Annele could resist, and completely effaced from her mind the new clothes and all her old grudges against her despised cousin. They talked over the good old times,--bewailed the present and condemned the ingratitude of mankind, until such perfect sympathy was established between them that they parted as if they had always been the dearest of friends and had lived together like sisters.
Annele accompanied Ernestine a little way down the hill, and commissioned her to tell her husband he must be looking out for a suitable hotel for them, a post station if possible, which they could buy and improve, and sell their house on the Morgenhalde. Ernestine promised the commission should be faithfully executed, and begged Annele repeatedly to be sure and apply to her for whatever groceries and other household goods she might need.
Many thoughts chased one another through Annele's mind as she retraced her steps homeward. Shall our house have supported and raised to prosperity so many humble dependants, and shall we ourselves be nothing? Even that simple Ernestine has had her wits so sharpened by living among us as to be able to carry on a shop and make something of her miserable tailor of a husband. She used to wear my cast-off clothes, and now what a figure she cuts! for all the world like a magistrate's wife, with her pocket full of money. And am I to do nothing but wither away up here and be reduced to receiving favors from Ernestine? It was all a pretence her leaving the coffee and sugar as samples; she meant to make me a present of them if she had dared. No, Mr. Clockmaker, I will wind you up another way and to a different tune.
She rejoiced to think of the commission she had given. If anything should come of it, they would lead a different sort of life. Meanwhile she would keep quiet and say nothing.
Late at night Lenz returned from the city, weary and dejected. No paper had been found guaranteeing him the protection of the forest. When he awoke the next morning, and heard the axes at work on the hill behind his house, every stroke seemed to fall upon his heart. Would I could die! he thought, as he settled down to his work. Not a word did he speak the whole day; only when putting out the lamp at night he said aloud, "I wish I could put out my own life as easily!" His wife pretended not to hear.
Hitherto neither her parents' fate nor her own had drawn a tear from Annele. Except for the one exclamation of distress for her children, she had remained perfectly calm. But the next morning, when no fresh, white bread came up from the village, and she laid the usual coarse loaf on the table, the big tears rolled down her cheeks and fell upon the bread. She cut off the moistened slice before Lenz saw it, and ate it with her tears.