Berthold Auerbach

“ You can torment me as you will; I am a weak woman, unable to defend myself."
"A weak woman?" cried Petrovitsch, with unwonted sharpness. "A weak woman? a pretty way, to drive a man distracted with your obstinacy, to drop poison into his heart till he is on the verge of despair, and then say, 'I am a weak woman!'"
"I might tell a lie," continued Annele, "and make promises for the future; but I will not. Rather will I let myself be torn in pieces than give up one jot of my rights. All I said was true, and that I knew it was poison is also true."
"All true?" cried Lenz, pale as death. ”

“ It will soon be over, and then you will feel all the merrier."
"Annele is right," said Lenz, with unwonted decision. "We will be married according to the laws of the land, and there is no more to be said about it. Life and death, indeed! It is all life for us now. Your pardon, father and mother; we understand each other perfectly. Every moment now is worth a million? Do you remember the song, Annele?--
"Honor lies not in a golden store,
Shame lies not in poverty;
And so would I had a thousand dollars more,
And had my own true love by me." ”

“ Not till the wedding was fairly over would Annele of the Lion be called Annele Lenz.
The day was clear after a heavy fall of snow, and the sleighing excellent. The jingling of bells and cracking of whips sounded from every hill and valley. At least a hundred sleighs stood before the Lion inn on the wedding morning. Strange horses were quartered in every stall. Many a solitary cow was startled by a visit from a span of noble horses. It is not for the like of a poor cow, shut up in her solitary winter quarters, to know what is going on in the world; that privilege is reserved for men. ”

“ He lives, he must live to atone for it. He told you he had withdrawn his security. Come home, you liar, you hypocrite! Annele went into her chamber, and Faller was obliged to depart without seeing her again. Gone was all sorrow, all contrition, all love. Lenz had deceived her, had told her a lie, and he should pay for it. Just like these good-natured milksops who, because they cannot stand up like men for their own rights, must be handled like a soft-shelled egg! Let me alone, and I will let you alone; refuse me nothing, and I will refuse you nothing, though you make me a beggar. ”

“ Because her heart shone in her face, her kindliness towards all men, her joy and care that they should be happy; that makes an old face beautiful, and all who look upon it blessed. But Annele! when she has no more hair to braid into a crown, and no more red cheeks, and no more white teeth to show when she laughs, what is left? She has nothing to grow old; no soul in her body, only pretty phrases; no true heart, no honest intelligence, only a spirit of mockery. When she grows old, she will be no better than the devil's grandmother."
Lenz pressed his lips hard between his teeth. ”

“ A musical clock began to play. Petrovitsch turned involuntarily in his chair, but appeared to drop off to sleep again. When the piece was finished, Annele cried again: "I must beg forgiveness of everything, even of the clock. I was always ridiculing it, and now I hear how beautiful it is. O God! not for myself I pray. Save us, save us all! Let me show that I can make all well again."
"All is well now," said Lenz; "even though we die. While the clock was playing the thought came to me that we have our edelweiss again. It has grown up in your good heart and in the hearts of us all? ”

“ Lenz shook his head, doubtingly. "Do you know Annele's chief motive for taking you?" resumed Pilgrim at length. "It was not your tall figure, not your good heart, not even your money. Those were minor considerations. Her chief delight is that the doctor's daughter did not get you. He is not yours, but mine. You cannot understand a character like Annele's, to whom no pleasure, no happiness is complete that does not wound another; whose greatest triumph is to imagine another's vexation at seeing her so handsome, so rich, so happy. I did not believe there were such persons till I knew Annele. ”

“ I have lived like a child," said Lenz.
"I have been abroad in the world for you, Lenz," Annele answered. "I have known thousands and thousands of persons in their business and other relations. I have heard how differently they talk behind a man's back from what they do to his face, and have seen them laughing at him for being taken in by fair professions. Hardly anybody says what he really believes. I can tell you more of the world than you would have learned in ten years of travel." ”

“ I enjoy my food and my sleep. There is a blessing on all that goes on in this house. Look at the wood; has it not grown nicely? and it is all our own. As truly as that forest grows and thrives where God planted it, so truly does all good grow and thrive with us. Are they not fine young trees? we shall live to see them grow strong and tall."
Katharine could not wait for that, and as she went off with the twins, accompanied by their mother, Lenz, and Annele, Franzl called after her from the kitchen: "Katharine, you must make up your mind to stand god-mother next time." ”

“ Lenz took the child in his arms, and with difficulty persuaded Annele to be quiet. "The hand of death is upon our house," he said; "all struggle is unavailing. Did you keep William too at home? Is he concealed anywhere here?"
"No; he went with the maid. I kept only the baby."
"Thank God! we are not all lost; one of us at least is saved. Poor little child! I sent the boy away, Annele, that he might not see his father kill himself; but now all is changed. God summons us all. Poor child, to have to perish for your parents' sins!" ”

“ Look! there is not a soul to be seen. They have shut the window in the corner room. There they are, I know, dying of spite; they will have to tell about us, for I can hear the old mayoress asking, What is that horn-blowing? I should like to be behind the door, and hear it all."
"Annele, you put on strange airs to-day."
"And why not? you please me specially to-day. People are right in praising your eyes. How true and clear they are! I did not know they were so beautiful. You are really a handsome fellow!"
Lenz looked yet handsomer from the glow of pleasure which overspread his face. ”

“ If you marry Annele, you will be doing a thousand wrongs your life long. Lenz, she is no wife for you,--she least of any."
"You do not know her, only joking with her as you do. But I have learned her through and through,--her goodness, her cleverness."
"You think I do not know her? Why, I have eaten a bushel of salt with those people. I can describe them every one to you. Annele and her mother are so much alike they cannot bear one another, though they do pretend to be so fond in public. They exchange sweet speeches, because the guests eat and drink better when pleasant sounds are going on. ”

“ I am glad I am a clockmaker; it is a noble calling. I could preach you a sermon upon it. The world is a clock, wound up by God from everlasting to everlasting. The stars circle in the heavens, one about another. There are no clocks in Paradise, Pilgrim says. That may be; but from the hour when men had to labor they had to divide the time. Just think, we should be like children and fools if we could not tell the hours!"
"You make all so clear to me! I never thought of that before."
Lenz grew more eloquent under this praise. ”

“ There is my hand, Lenz; you are a beggar for kind looks and words, which is pitiful; but you have not deserved a punishment like this, to be driven mad by a devil in your house. Give me the child! you are not fit to hold an innocent child in your arms."
The little girl screamed as he snatched her from her mother. Lenz interposed: "Not so, uncle, not so. Listen to me, Annele; I have only kind words to speak. Annele, we are standing beside an open grave--"
Annele shrieked and covered her face with her hands. "You, too, are standing by your open grave," he continued. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The baby had been put to sleep, and as Annele sat by the child's bed an invisible power held her in her chair, and forced her to listen to the voice of her own thoughts: Annele, what change has come over you? The gay, handsome Annele, whom all loved and flattered, sitting here in a darkened chamber of a lonely house, having to delve and to save!--I would not mind that; I would do it gladly, if I were but honored in the household. But nothing I do or say suits him. What do I do that is wrong? Am I not frugal and industrious, willing to work even more than I do? ”

“ 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. ”

“ No third person can understand our two hearts after all we have been through together. Yesterday, Lenz, as I was sitting here by myself, the thought came to me, that I had never known what it was to love with my whole heart. I had been your wife for five years, and never found out till yesterday how much I loved you. If you had come home then, I should have kissed your eyes and your hands. Oh, you do not know how dearly I can love! But instead came Faller, who first frightened me, and then told how you had deceived me about the security. ”

“ We cannot bear to have a thing injured that we have cared for day and night for months."
"My own dear Annele!" cried Lenz, enchanted at this beautiful expression of her quick, intelligent sympathy.
"There is no use talking with you lovers," replied the mother, with pretended amiability; "unless one is in love himself, he can say nothing to please you." She went to and fro about the house, for Lenz had requested that Annele might be excused from attendance in the public room, at least for a few days. ”

“ I desire to be thankful I have no need to exalt myself at the expense of others, to help myself out of another's purse, as old Marie Lenz used to say. Thousands of persons are passing in and out here who can let the whole world know what we are. A hotel is not like a private house, where the family can appear most loving to one another, and keep everything in beautiful order for two or three days, while a visitor is present, and then, behind his back, be ready to scratch each other's eyes out, and let the housekeeping go at sixes and sevens ”

“ While Lenz in the little parlor shook hands with his new sisters, and kissed and embraced his brothers-in-law, and the doctor came with his daughters,--it was kind of them to come to the wedding,--and one person after another passed in and out and offered congratulations, Annele sat still in her chair, holding a fine white handkerchief pressed to her eyes. "I could not help crying as I did," said Lenz; "you know how happy I am. From this hour we will hold the one honor between us firm and true, and, please God, it shall grow with us. ”

“ Pilgrim was loud in his praises of Annele, as Lenz accompanied him part of the way down the hill.
"Never has a dinner tasted so good as to-day's," exclaimed the husband, joyfully, as he re-entered the little room. "What greater happiness can there be in the world than to earn your meat and drink by honest toil, and have a darling wife and a faithful friend to enjoy it with you?" ”

“ 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 have spoiled your son; you might have made a man of him by letting him seek his fortune in the world, and you would not. But your thousands and thousands of good deeds known to none but me, your allowing none to be evil spoken of, your making the best of everything and everybody, even to speaking a good word for Petrovitsch,--not one shall be forgotten. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That she should reproach him--reproach him on such a day as this--with thinking too much of others was a cruel sting to Lenz, though he did not let it dwell on his mind. He was forced to own that she was right; that this very weakness of his made him less successful in the world than other men,--made him seem less capable than he really was. The recollection of a word or action would haunt him for days, destroying all his peace. Other men fare better. They live for themselves, and heap together what they get without asking about their fellows. ”