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CHAPTER XXVII.
EVERYTHING LAID LOW

The court of inquiry brought to light all the secrets of the Lion. The landlord was shown to be a perfect monster. In order to satisfy those who insisted upon fair dealing and their full rights, he had sacrificed the humble and dependent. His own postilions lost their little savings. Poor clockmakers walked up and down the village street in despair, complaining that the landlord had been stealing months and years of their life all the while they were upholding him as the most honorable man in the country. Even the landlady was not saved by her pretended innocence. She had always spread such a glamour about her house, and uttered such magnificent boasts, and so honored the world with her patronage! The landlord, at least, had only lied by his silence and his quiet acceptance of the titles of man of honor and such like that were showered on him from every side.

Many creditors were undeterred by the long walk from visiting Lenz on the Morgenhalde. They had come as far as the village, and had a right to see the whole extent of the disaster. There was a blending of compassion with comfort at the sight of misfortune greater than their own, in the condolences they expressed. Many tried to console him with hopes of inheriting from his uncle, and promised they would make no claims upon him when he should come into his fortune. Wherever Lenz appeared he was compassionated for the baseness of his father-in-law in thus robbing his own son. Only one man had a good word for the landlord, and that was Pilgrim, who quite won Annele's heart by asserting at Lenz's house, in all sincerity, that her father had not meant to be dishonest, but had only been out in his calculations, and unfortunately risked his all in that unlucky Brazilian suit. A report was circulated that the landlady was having everything that could be smuggled out of sight carried up to the Morgenhalde. One poor clockmaker came to Lenz and promised to betray nothing if he might but have restored to him what was rightfully his. Lenz called in his wife and declared he would never forgive her if she had received into the house a farthing's worth of goods that did not belong to her. Upon the head of her child she swore she never had and never would. Lenz took her hand from the child's head; he would have no oaths.

Annele had said truly that there were no forfeited goods at the Morgenhalde. The landlady was often at the house, but Lenz held little communication with her. Well it was for her that Franzl was no longer there; for the new maid, a near relation of Annele's, made frequent journeys in the night between the Lion and the neighboring village, carrying heavy baskets full of things to be exchanged by Ernestine for money. Her husband, the shopkeeper, was the only one of the landlord's dependants who had not suffered. The clockmakers, instead of receiving ready money, had had the privilege of taking various stores from his shop on the landlord's security. The poor fellows found themselves now with no clocks and deep in debt. The shopkeeper told them frankly that they were better able to pay than the man who had given them security.

To all expressions of condolence Lenz had made answer that he should be able to stand his ground; but fearful and unexpected demands poured in upon him. Every petty creditor clamored for the instant payment of his farthing debt. All confidence, even in him, was destroyed. He knew not which way to turn. The heaviest claim of all, and one which he could not tell Annele, because she had given him fair warning on that very score, was for the security on Faller's house. The poor fellow came to him, quite beside himself with grief, to say that the owner of the house no longer considered Lenz's security valid, and that with his large family he saw no refuge open to him. Lenz promised him certain help. His good name and that of his parents could not fail to be honored. The world surely had not become so depraved as to have lost all regard for long-tried honesty.

Annele, who knew only of the lesser debts, advised Lenz to go to his uncle for assistance.

To his uncle indeed! The same disinclination to encounter disagreeable sights which made Petrovitsch invariably leave the village when a funeral was to take place, prompted him now to start off on a journey. The day after the landlord's disgrace he had disappeared, leaving his roadside harvest of unripe cherries to be gathered by the boys in the street; nor did he show himself again till the winter was well on, a new landlord established at the Lion, and the two old people settled in a house near the city, adjoining that of their son-in-law, the lumber-merchant.

The landlord had borne his fate with an equanimity almost deserving of admiration. Only once, at sight of the engineer driving his two bays, did his composure forsake him; but it was outside the town, and no one saw how he stumbled and fell into the ditch and lay grovelling there without the power to rise.

Petrovitsch took his walks now in another direction, and was no longer seen on the path by Lenz's house, nor in the wood, little of which indeed was now standing.

Lenz often spent half the night looking over his accounts and trying to make both ends meet. A way was offered at last; but the money burned as if hot from the Devil's mint.

Ernestine's husband appeared on the Morgenhalde with a stranger whom he presented to Lenz as a would-be purchaser of his house.

"What!" exclaimed Lenz, in great surprise; "my house?"

"Yes: it is worth much less now, as you say yourself, than it was before the wood was cut down. It stands in a very precarious position, but that can be partially remedied by precautionary measures."

"Who told you I wanted to sell my house?"

"Your wife."

"My wife? Annele, come here! Did you ever say I wanted to sell my house?"

"Not exactly. I only told Ernestine that if her husband should hear of a good hotel, in a favorable situation, we should like to buy it, and then sell our house."

"It would be much wiser," suggested the shopkeeper, "to sell your house first. You would easily find a suitable hotel, if you had the ready money to pay for it."

Lenz turned pale as death, and with difficulty brought out the words, "I shall on no account sell my house."

The two men departed, complaining bitterly of those shiftless persons who did not know their own mind from one day to another, and put others to a vast amount of needless trouble.

Lenz with difficulty commanded his rising passion.

Annele paid no heed to the frequent glances he turned upon her when they were left by themselves, but preserved a sullen silence. At last he spoke.

"Why did you play me such a trick?"

"I have played you no trick. This is a thing that must be done. We shall have no peace till we leave this place. I will stay here no longer. I want to be mistress of a hotel. You will see that I can earn in a year three times as much as you with your barrel-organs."

"Do you think you can force me to it?"

"If I could, you would have reason to thank me. You seem quite unable to help yourself out of your old ruts."

"I am not; I am out of them already," he said in a hollow voice, as he hastily put on his coat and left the house.

Annele ran a few steps after him.

"Where are you going, Lenz?"

He made no answer, but kept steadily on up the mountain.

Arrived at the highest point he turned and looked behind him. There lay his old homestead, stripped of its shelter of trees, naked and bare as he felt his own life to be. He turned away and hurried on. Abroad, abroad into strange lands he would go, and never come back till all in himself and in the world was changed.

He ran on and on, an almost irresistible impulse all the while tempting him back. He sat down at last on the stump of a tree, and covered his face with his hands. It was a still, soft afternoon of late autumn, when the sun's beams still fell kindly on the earth, especially on the Morgenhalde, and spread lovingly over the fallen trees they had so long nourished. The voices of the magpies were heard busily chattering in the chestnut-tree below, mixed with the frequent chirp of the nutpecker. In Lenz's heart was the blackness of death. "Man, help me up with this!" suddenly cried a child's voice. He rose and helped Faller's eldest daughter lift upon her back the bundle of chips she had been gathering among the fallen trees. The child was terrified at his wild looks, so like a murderer or a ghost as she thought, and hurried down the hill. He stood long watching the retreating figure.

It was night before Lenz returned home. He spoke not a word, but sat for an hour staring blankly on the ground. When he looked up, it was only to turn a wondering gaze on the tools hanging about the walls and suspended from the ceiling, as if questioning in his mind what they all were, and what they were used for.

The child in the next room began to cry, and would not be pacified till Annele went in and sang to it.

The mother must sing for the sake of her child, though her heart be breaking. Lenz roused himself, and followed her into the chamber. "Annele." he said, "I have been out into the country; I wanted to be up and away from here. Yes, you may laugh; I knew you would."

"I am not laughing. I had already thought it would be a good plan for you to go abroad for a year. Perhaps you would come back a wiser man, and all might be well again."

It cut him to the heart to hear her urging him to leave her; but he only answered: "If I could not go abroad while I was happy, still less can I go with this miserable weight at my heart. I am nothing, and am good for nothing when my thoughts are not free and happy."

"Now you do indeed make me laugh," said Annele; "so you can neither go abroad when you are happy nor when you are unhappy."

"I do not understand you. I have never understood you, nor you me."

"That is the worst of all, that there should be misery within as well as without."

"Do away with it, then, and be kind and good."

"Don't speak so loud; you will wake the child," answered Annele.

As soon as the conversation took this turn, there was nothing more to be got from her. Lenz returned to the sitting-room, and when Annele followed him, and had gently closed the door, he said: "Now in our misfortune is the time to love and cherish each other. That comfort alone might still be left us; why will you refuse it?"

"Love cannot be forced."

"Then I must go away again."

"And I shall stay at home," said Annele, indifferently; "I shall stay with my children."

"They are as much mine as yours."

"Of course," said Annele, in the same hard voice.

"There is the clock beginning to play!" cried Lenz, in distress, "and that merry waltz too! I wish I might never hear another note. Oh, if one would but dash out these miserable brains that have lost all power to think! Can you not speak one kind word, Annele?"

"I know of none."

"Then I will. Let there be peace between us, and all will be well."

"I am willing."

"Can you not throw your arms about my neck and say you are glad to have me back again?"

"No; but to-morrow perhaps."

"And if I should die to-night?"

"Then I should be a widow."

"And marry some one else?"

"If any one would have me."

"You will drive me mad!"

"It would not take much to do that."

"Annele!!"

"That is my name."

"What is to be the end of this?"

"God knows."

"Annele! Is it true that we were once so happy together?"

"I suppose it must be."

"And can we never be again?"

"I do not know."

"Why do you answer me so?"

"Because you ask me such questions."

Lenz buried his face in his hands, and remained in that attitude through almost the entire night.

He tried to make out how and why things had come to this extremity; why to his other misfortunes this so horrible one was added. He could not explain it. He lived over every moment from the first day to this night, and still could not explain it. "I cannot make it out! I cannot make it out!" he cried. "If a voice would but come down from heaven and tell me!" But there came no voice from heaven. All was still save the monotonous ticking of the clocks.

He stood at the window, gazing out. The night was still; no living thing stirred. Only snow-clouds were chasing each other across the sky. All night long, a lamp burned at the blacksmith's on the neighboring mountain. The smith had died that day. "Why was he allowed to die and not I? I would so gladly be dead." Life and death drove in wild confusion through his brain; the living were not alive; the dead were not dead; life is but one great horror; no bird ever sang; no human being ever made melody. The whole world is waste and void as it was before the creation. All is chaos…

His forehead dropped upon the window-sill; the blow scared him from his horrible waking dreams; he tried to find rest and forgetfulness in sleep.

Annele had long been asleep. If he could but read her dreams! he thought, as he watched her. If he could but find some help for her and for himself!

CHAPTER XXVIII.
A BEGGAR'S HAT, AND AN OLD MAN'S EARNINGS

In this part of the country the frost, when it has once set in, holds on unrelentingly for many months. The Morgenhalde alone makes a happy exception to the rule. There the sun has sufficient power to make a dripping from the roof, when all elsewhere is hung with heavy icicles. But this winter even the sun in heaven failed to treat the Morgenhalde with its wonted friendliness. There was no thawing outside the house nor in.

Not only was the cold greater than it used to be, – that was easily accounted for by the cutting down of the forest, whose tall trunks lay scattered about, waiting for the spring floods to carry them down into the valley, – but a weight as of frost lay heavy on the hearts of the dwellers upon the Morgenhalde. Annele seemed to have lost the power of rousing herself to life. Something had frozen up within her, which no warm breath could have melted, had any such breath reached her.

Annele, the only child who had remained near her parents, felt herself now the most cruelly deserted by their removal. The secret mortification of being the only poor one of the whole family of sisters seemed more than she could bear. She could do nothing to help her father and mother; nay, might even be reduced to asking charity of her sisters, to begging their children's cast-off clothes for her own little ones.

She moved silently about her work, her love of talking all gone, answering whatever question might be put to her, but nothing beyond. She scarce ever left the house. Her former restlessness seemed to have passed into Lenz. He so wholly despaired of accomplishing anything by his old quiet industry that the chair on which he sat and the tools he held in his hand seemed coals of fire to him. Petty creditors whom he was unable to pay, and was obliged to put off with fair words, were constantly annoying him. He, the Lenz who had only needed to say, "Thus and thus it is," to command instant confidence, now had to make solemn promises to this man and that, that his money should be paid him. The greater was his anxiety lest he should be unable to redeem his word, and the more did he exaggerate the danger that threatened his honor. The thought of the various persons here and there who were waiting for the receipt of their money haunted his sleeping and waking hours and increased his restlessness. He had always been considered a man who could be perfectly depended upon; now he frequently disappointed hopes that he had raised, and even failed to keep his engagements. He had trusted that the mere knowledge of his distress would be a sufficient protection against outside annoyances; he soon learned that men accept no excuses in lieu of their ready money. The ring of that is better than the echo of any good name; the best have too often proved a poor dependence.

Annele saw that Lenz was tormenting himself unreasonably. She was often tempted to turn his importunate creditors out of doors, and bid him not yield so meekly to their cruel exactions. It was the way of the world, as she knew, to trample upon those who cringed to it. But she kept her thoughts to herself. His distress should drive him to adopt her cherished plan of buying a hotel. Then, and not till then, would matters assume a different aspect.

In his anxiety and despair Lenz felt keenly the desolation at his heart, and his sidelong glance at Annele often said, as plainly as words could have done: You are right. You have often reproved me for being shiftless and good-for-nothing. Your words are coming true; I am good-for-nothing. My heart is consumed with anxieties, and this unloving life is wearing me away. I am like a candle that is kept burning at both ends. May it soon be burned out!

Many persons brought him articles to be repaired, and obliged him to work off part of his debt in that way. Now, now when bread was needed for to-day, and there was no provision for the future, it was hard to have to work for the past.

Some sat by him while he did their little jobs, keeping him thus a prisoner in his own house; others with complaints and revilings took away again the commissions he had failed to execute.

Such an existence was not to be endured. He must find some remedy, some lasting remedy. His present state was neither living nor dying. "It is intolerable to hang thus suspended by the hair of my head. I am resolved once more to have solid ground under my feet," he said to Annele. She vouchsafed a scarce perceptible nod of assent, but the mere exercise of his will gave him new strength.

Early the next morning he set off across the mountain to visit his mother's relations in the next valley. He had always been a favorite with them, and felt sure they would not look on and see him perish.

The stars were just fading in the light of approaching day, when he reached the top of the mountain-ridge. He looked abroad over the snow-covered world. Nowhere a sign of life; why must he be living?

A phrase that had haunted him in one of his sleepless nights came now into his mind: "The white sleep," this was it.

An icy wind from the mountains blew against his fevered checks, and rudely recalled him to his senses by tearing the hat from his head and whirling it down the abyss on whose brink he stood. His first impulse was to rush after it; but a look showed him that it would be rushing to certain death. One instant the thought flashed through his brain that a happy accident might thus end his life forever; the next he had put the cowardly suggestion behind him.

The blinding snow drifted ceaselessly across the ridge. The very raven scarce was able to guide his flight, but, with fluttering wings, was driven now high aloft, now deep into the abyss.

Lenz plodded painfully through snow and wind, till at last his eyes were greeted by the sight of human habitations. The smoke, beaten down by the wind, was spread in light clouds above the roofs of the houses. Chimneys were almost unknown in this part of the country.

Lenz sought shelter at the first farm-house. "Welcome, welcome, Lenz! I am glad you have not forgotten me," exclaimed a tall, handsome woman standing by the hearth, with the pieces of a stout bough she had just broken still in her hand.

"What have you done with your hat?"

"I did not recognize you at first. You are Katharine, are you not? How strong you have grown. Katharine, I am come begging."

"Not so bad as that, I hope, Lenz."

"Yes, but it is though," said Lenz, with a bitter smile. He felt this was no subject for joking. "You must lend or give me an old hat; mine has been blown away by the wind."

"Come into the sitting-room. My husband will be sorry not to have been at home to see you. He is carting wood in the forest."

The bailiff's daughter opened the sitting-room door, and politely invited Lenz to precede her into the warm, cosey parlor.

He told her frankly when they were seated together that he had had no intention of coming to see her; that in fact he did not even know where she lived; but was glad that chance had led him to her door. She took the confession in good part, saying, "You always were a true, honest fellow, and I am glad you keep so." She brought out an old gray hat and a soldier's cap of her husband's for him to take his choice between, recommending the cap, as the hat was really too shabby to wear. It was very much crushed and wanted a ribbon besides. He chose the hat, however, and Katharine, finding he could not be induced to change his mind, cut off one of the broad black ribbons from her Sunday hood, and made it serve as a hatband, talking all the while of the people and things in her old home, – everything connected with which she held in fond remembrance.

"Do you remember throwing your hat up into the air one night as we were coming home from the musical festival at Constance, and my running down to the meadow to pick it up for you?"

"To be sure I do. I don't throw my hat up into the air nowadays; the wind blows it up."

"The summer is sure to follow the winter," said Katharine, comfortingly.

Lenz looked in wonder at the handsome woman so ready to help with hand and tongue. She soon had a cup of coffee ready which she insisted upon his drinking, sitting by him while he did so and talking over old days and old acquaintances. "Franzl often comes to see us," she said; "we are still the best of friends."

"I can see that life has prospered with you," said Lenz.

"Thank God, I have nothing to complain of. I have good health, money enough for myself, and something to spare for others. My husband is honest and industrious. It is not quite so merry here as it used to be at home, for we have no singing. I would not mind that, if only I had a child. My husband and I have agreed that, if we still have none of our own on the fifth anniversary of our marriage, we will adopt one. Faller must let us have one of his. You will try to persuade him, will you not?"

"Gladly."

"How old you have grown, Lenz! You look all fallen away. Is it true that Annele has turned out such a bad wife?"

Lenz's face flushed crimson. "Good Heavens!" cried Katharine; "how stupid I am! I beg your pardon, Lenz, a thousand times. I did not mean to wound you. I know it is not true. People will talk as long as the day lasts, and when the days are short they take the night for it. I pray you again and again to forget I ever said such a thing. I have been so happy at having you see me in my own home, and now all my pleasure is gone; I shall be miserable for weeks. You and the landlady said I was too stupid, and I really am. Please give me back my heedless words, Lenz."

She held out her hand as if expecting him to lay the words in it.

Lenz grasped her hand, assuring her that he was not offended, but, on the contrary, grateful to her from his very heart. The hands of both trembled. Lenz said it was time he was on his way again, but she held him fast, and seemed anxious, by talking of all manner of other topics, to efface the remembrance of her heedless speech. When he left at last, she cried out after him: "Remember me to your Annele, and bring her soon to see me."

Lenz went on his way with the borrowed hat; a beggar's hat, as he called it, sadly.

Katharine's words pursued him. The same pity that was expressed for him in that house was doubtless felt in many others. The thought almost unmanned him, but he would not give way. He told himself that it was his own fault; he ought to have showed more firmness.

Again and again his stick fell from his hands, and every time he stooped to pick it up, he almost lacked the power to rise.

So much for a man's brooding over his sorrows instead of giving heed to his way! You would lose your hands if they were not fastened to your body. Mind what you are about!

He straightened himself up and walked on more briskly. The sun shone bright and warm; the icicles on the rocks glittered and dripped; joyous mountain songs, that he used to sing with the Liederkranz, began to ring in his ears. Away with them! It could not have been he who once sang such songs out of the gladness of his heart.

The relations he visited gave him a friendly welcome. At first he related everywhere the adventure of the hat as an excuse for appearing in such a dilapidated condition; but, finding that no one seemed to think it required an explanation, he finally ceased to mention it. Of course, in those very houses where he said nothing of the hat, it excited great speculation; and was taken as a proof of the abject poverty into which he had fallen.

His request for money was everywhere refused with more or less civility. Some wondered at his applying to them when he had rich brothers-in-law and an uncle rolling in money; others more politely excused themselves on the plea of having just bought some land and needing all their money for building; or regretted he had not applied a few days ago, before they made their last investment.

Sorely dispirited, Lenz pursued his way. He could not bear to think of home. His one wish was that he might never see the Morgenhalde again, but could lie down in some ditch, or in the wood, or in any one of the many quiet places he passed; lie down and die. Still, an irresistible force drove him ever onward.

Before him lay Knuslingen, where Franzl lived with her brother. There was at least one person in the world who would be glad to see him.

Who indeed could be so happy as Franzl when Lenz entered her room? She was sitting at the window, spinning coarse yarn, and a great bound her distaff gave at the sight of him. Twice she wiped the chair on which he was to sit, uttering all the while many apologies at the untidiness of the room. She had never noticed before how damp and smoky it was. Lenz must tell all about himself, and yet she could not keep still long enough to listen. She began running on in her old way. "At first the cold here was more than I could bear, after being used to our good sun on the Morgenhalde. Whenever there is a ray of sunlight anywhere, we were sure to get it there. Whatever else may go wrong, Lenz, be thankful for so much good sunlight; that no one can rob you of. It is very different here. For seven weeks and five days not a glimmer reached this valley. On the second day after the festival of the Three Kings, at eleven o'clock, the first ray of sun fell on that pear-tree at the edge of the hill, and from that time the sun kept climbing up so that in summer it is warm and pleasant. By this time I have grown to feel quite at home here again. But, Lenz, what makes you look so? There is a something in your face that I never saw before, – something that does not belong there. Ah! that is better; when you smile you have your old look again, – your pleasant look. You must have felt how I have prayed for you and yours every morning and every evening. I bear no grudge against Annele, not the least. She was quite right. I am a poor, worn-out tool. Whom do your children look like? What are their names? When the spring comes again, I must get to see them if I have to creep on my hands and knees." Then Franzl went on to tell how she had three hens and three geese and a potato-patch, all her own. "We are poor," she said, folding her hands on her bosom, "but, thank Heaven, we have never been reduced to looking on and seeing others eat. We have always had something to put in our mouths. Please Heaven, next year I mean to buy myself a goat." She bestowed great praise upon her geese, and greater still upon her hens. The hens, whose winter-quarters were in a coop by the stove, politely clucked their thanks and took as good a view as their space permitted of the man to whom their good qualities were thus set forth. The gold-colored hen, called Yellow-hammer, flapped her wings with delight, and then gave herself a good, comfortable shake.

Lenz had no time to speak, before Franzl, thinking to comfort him, broke out into fierce abuse of the landlady, mixed with commendations of Katharine and her kindness to her, as well as to all the poor in the neighborhood. "She feeds my hens, and they in return feed me," said the old woman, laughing at her own wit.

Lenz at last made out to say that it was time for him to be going. He heard Annele's sharp words as plainly as if she were standing at his elbow, reproaching him for his foolish waste of time, in sitting listening to any old woman's tale that was poured into his ears. He cast a hurried look behind him to see if she were not actually in the room, and hastily seized his hat and cane. Franzl begged him before he went to mount with her into her little chamber under the roof where she had something to say to him. He trembled inwardly lest Franzl too was about to speak of his unhappiness at home. She did not refer to that, however, but brought out from the straw of her bed a heavy, well-filled shoe, tied with many fastenings, saying: "You must do me a favor; I cannot sleep in peace with this thing here; and I pray you to take it away and do what you please with it. Here are a hundred florins and three crown-pieces. You will take them, won't you? and give me back my quiet sleep." Lenz declined the proffered money, and again prepared to depart; but Franzl wept and held him fast. "If you have any message for your mother, let me know. Please God, I shall soon be with her, and will deliver it faithfully. And if your mother is too timid to tell our Lord God the whole truth, I will do it myself. You can rely upon me."

Still the old woman would not let go of Lenz's hand, and kept saying: "There was something else I wanted to say to you; it has been on my tongue, but now I cannot think what it was. As soon as you are gone I shall certainly remember it. I was to remind you of something; don't you know what it was?"

Lenz did not know what it was, and at last almost reluctantly took his departure.

He entered a wayside inn, where a noisy welcome awaited him. "Hurrah, hurrah! that is jolly to have you here too," cried a voice in greeting; and there at a table, on which stood a great flagon of beer, sat Pröbler with two of his associates. One of his pot companions was the blind musician from Fuchsberg, whose instrument Lenz was in the habit of putting in order every year. An expression of embarrassment and mortification overspread the blind man's face at the sound of Lenz's voice, but he assumed a braggadocio air, and, flourishing his glass above his head, cried out, "Come, Lenz, pledge me out of my glass!" Lenz courteously declined. Old Pröbler tried to get up and advance to meet him, but his legs soon admonished him that he was safer sitting, and he contented himself with calling out: "Take a seat with us, Lenz, and let the bankrupt world without snow itself away as it will. There is no good left in it. Here we will sit till the day of judgment. I want nothing more; when I have spent my last farthing I shall sell my coat for drink, and then lay me down in the snow and save you the cost of burying me. Here you have a proof, comrades, of what a worthless world it is, that can thus bring its best and noblest to ruin. Have a drink, Lenz! That is well. Look at him, the best and bravest fellow in all the world; and how has the world used him? When his mother died, and the whole town was talking of nothing but Lenz's marriage, – why, the sparrows could not be madder after a sack of corn than the girls were for Lenz."