Edelweiss Part 29

"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 pa.s.sion.

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 nutp.e.c.k.e.r. 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!!"