Joseph in the Snow, and The Clockmaker Volume III Part 2

"If you had asked my advice, I should have told you not to have given the money."

"What do you mean, Annele? I shall never take anything amiss in future, when I see that you distrust even your own father; but Franzl is right; she is quite patient with all your whims, for at this moment every one must give way to your wishes."

"So!" said Annele, "but I don't wish anyone to give way to me. What I said about my father was mere idle talk;--I don't myself know what put it into my head; but Franzl shall leave the house! So she complains of me to you, does she?"

Lenz tried hard to deny this, and to excuse Franzl, saying that her intentions were very different--but all was in vain: before fourteen days had pa.s.sed, Franzl must leave the house, Lenz tried to console her, as he best could, by saying that no doubt she would come back soon, and that he would pay her wages as long as she lived. Franzl shook her head, and said, with tears:--

"The good Lord will provide for me, no doubt I never thought I should have left this house, till I was carried out of it in my coffin. I have been eight-and-twenty years here,--but I can't help it. Oh, dear! to look at all my pots and pans, and my copper kettle and my pails! how many thousand times have I had them in my hand, and cleaned them. No one can say, when I am gone, that I was not tidy and orderly; there stand my witnesses; if they could speak, every handle and spout must say how I have been, and what I have been; but G.o.d knows all things; He can see not only into houses, but into hearts;--that is my comfort, consolation, and solace,--but I say no more. To tell the truth I am not sorry to leave, for I would rather spin thorns than stay here. I don't wish to vex your heart, Lenz;--I would rather you killed me at once like a rat, than be the cause of strife in your home: no, no, that shall never be. Have no anxiety on my account; you have enough without that; and if I could take your troubles with me, I would not care if I sank down on the way from the burden. Don't think of me;--I mean to go to my brother in Kunslingen; I was born there, and there I mean to stay till I die; and when I join your mother in paradise, I will wait on her just as I used to do. The good Lord will admit me for her sake, and for her sake I feel sure you will prosper in the world. Now, farewell; and forgive me if I ever offended you. Good bye, and good bye a thousand times over!"

Lenz was silent and gloomy for a long time after Franzl went away, but Annele was more cheerful than ever. She was indeed a sorceress, for she could influence him as she chose; her voice seemed to have some magic power, when she wished to please, that no one could resist. Pilgrim succeeded in pacifying Lenz entirely. He tried to persuade him that Annele could only now, for the first time, feel herself really mistress of the house, since the old maid took her departure, who had acquired a certain mastery in the family. Annele had certainly been accustomed to much greater activity in the house, and was much better pleased when there was a great deal to do; she declared to Lenz that she would never hire another maid, as so small a household was scarcely half sufficient work for herself alone. The apprentice was to a.s.sist her; it was not till Lenz brought in the aid of his mother-in-law that a new maid was engaged.

All continued now cheerful and peaceful in the house, far into the summer. Annele urged her mother to see that her father soon paid back Lenz his money, and the latter came one day and offered Lenz the wood behind his house instead of payment, but demanded another thousand gulden. Lenz replied that he did not want to buy the wood, he wished to have current money, so the affair was set at rest, and the worthy landlord gave Lenz his acknowledgment in due form, and properly executed.

Late in the summer there were great doings in the village. The Techniker married Bertha, the doctor's second daughter,--the eldest was resolved to remain single,--and the doctor's son, who made chronometers, returned from his travels. It was said that he intended to erect, near his father's house, a large establishment for the fabrication of clocks and watches, with all kinds of new machinery. In the whole country there were lamentations, for it was feared everyone would be ruined, and that now clocks would be made here, as they were in America, without a single stroke of a file, and entirely by the pressure of machinery. Lenz was one of those in no manner disturbed; he said that hitherto they had been able to compete with the American clockmakers, and he saw no reason why they should not do the same with regard to the Doctor's case; moreover, no machinery could place the mechanism properly together,--man's intelligence was required for that.

It would be rather an advantage to many parts of the clocks, if they could be made quicker by machinery.

Lenz and the schoolmaster were, in the mean time, much occupied in trying to effect a project they had long cherished. The princ.i.p.al traders were to enter into an a.s.sociation, to render themselves independent of retail dealers, and merchants. But instead of any effectual support, they found only grumbling and complaints, and Annele, when she heard of the plan, said:--

"For goodness' sake give it up; I wonder you don't tire of always rolling the b.a.l.l.s for others to play."

Annele, however, repeatedly urged Lenz to undertake an establishment of this kind along with her father, and if it was necessary, he might travel for a year in the interests of the firm, while she would stay with her parents. Lenz, however, declared,--

"I am not suited to that kind of thing, and I shall certainly not leave home as a married man, when I never did so as a bachelor."

He therefore entirely gave up all idea of an a.s.sociation, and pacified Annele by a.s.suring her that they would have quite as good an income; that she need have no fears on that account, and Pilgrim quite agreed with Lenz's views.

Annele consequently regarded Pilgrim as the chief obstacle to Lenz's advancement in life.

"He is a man," said she, "who never in all his life succeeded in anything, and he never will."

She tried, in every possible way, to sow discord between Pilgrim and Lenz, but she entirely failed.

Annele brooded over various plans, and was constantly reckoning and calculating in her head. She knew that Lenz had become security for Faller when he bought his house, and now she constantly pressed on him the propriety of recalling this security. He was obliged to consent to her wish, but just as he arrived at Faller's house his friend came out to meet him, laughing, and saying--

"My wife has just presented me, for the second time, with twins."

Lenz of course could not, at such a moment, plague Faller by depriving him of the security; and when Annele inquired what he had done, he gave her an evasive answer.

The night before the Techniker's marriage with the Doctor's daughter, Annele had a son. When Lenz was standing by her bedside, full of joy, she said:--

"Lenz, promise me one thing; promise me that you will give up Pilgrim, or that you will try for three months to do so."

"I can make no such promise," said Lenz, and a bitter drop fell into the cup of his joy.

Annele was painfully excited when the sounds of the wedding music in the valley reached her ears, and both her mother and her husband were alarmed for her life from such agitation; but she fell into a sound sleep at noon, and Lenz closed every door carefully to exclude all noise. She became now more composed, and was gentle and loveable, and Lenz felt truly grateful for his happiness, both as a husband and a father. Annele was so unusually amiable that she even said:--

"We promised Pilgrim that he should be G.o.dfather to our child, and this is a promise we must keep."

It was strange to see how variable her moods were. Lenz wished Petrowitsch to be the other G.o.dfather, but he refused.

Pilgrim brought the infant a large parchment, with a great many signatures and flourishes, painted by himself, which he laid on the cradle: it was a diploma from the Choral Society, in which the newly born child, on account of the fine voice he had no doubt inherited, was named an honorary member of the society.

"Do you know," said Lenz, "what is the sweetest sound in the world? The first cry of your child. Do you see how he can clutch a thing already?"

and he gave the infant his father's file into his little hand. Annele flung it away, exclaiming:--

"The child might kill himself with the sharp point," but in flinging it on the floor the point was broken.

"My father's honourable tool, consecrated by his memory, is now destroyed," said Lenz, distressed.

Pilgrim tried to console him by laughingly saying, that there must always be new men, and new tools, in the world.

Annele did not say a syllable.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE PENDULUMS SWING TOGETHER, BUT THE STRESS ON THE MAINSPRING IS SEVERE.

"Annele, come here, I have something to show you."

"I have no time."

"Only look, for it will please you. See, I set agoing two pendulums, on both these clocks, the one from right to left, and the other the reverse way. If you will observe, you will see that in the course of a few days they will both swing in the same direction, from right to left, or both the reverse way. That is owing to the power of attraction they mutually exercise; they approximate to each other by degrees."

"I don't believe that."

"You can see it with your own eyes; and so it will be with us. The one starts from the right, and the other from the left, and we must gradually balance each other. To be sure the pendulums never tick quite together, so as to make but one sound; a Spanish king tried to accomplish this, and it fairly turned his brain."

"Such nonsense only plagues me; you seem to have time for it, however, but I have not."

In the course of a few days the pendulums vibrated in unison, but the hearts of the married couple obstinately pursued their separate course.

Sometimes it almost seemed as if that miracle were to be accomplished, that was never yet attained by any work of human hands--identical vibration; but it was only delusion, and then the consciousness of having been deceived, was all the more sad.

Lenz thought that his disposition was very yielding, but it was not so in reality. Annele had no wish to be pliant or submissive; she thought that she knew everything best, she had experience in the ways of the world; men of every country, old and young, rich and poor, had all told her in the Inn, from the time she was a child, that she was as clever as the day.

Annele's nature was what is called superficial, but she was also easy to live with, lively, and active. She liked to talk much and often, but when the conversation was over, she never thought again either of what she had heard, or what she had said.

Lenz's disposition was more profound and solid; he was rather apprehensive by nature, as if habitually impressed with the transitory nature of everything in the world; he treated every subject, even the most insignificant, with the same subtle precision that he bestowed on his work--or as he liked to hear it called--his art.

If Annele had not recently seen people, she had nothing to talk about, but the more quiet their life was, the more Lenz had to say. When Lenz spoke, he always stopped working; Annele continued to speak, while finishing the work she had on hand.

Annele liked to relate her dreams, and strangely enough she always dreamt that she had been driving in a fine carriage with fine horses, in beautiful scenery, and a merry party; and "how we did laugh to be sure!" was always the burden of her narration; or else she dreamt that she was a landlady, and that kings and princes drew up to her door, and she made them such appropriate answers; whereas Lenz attached no importance to dreams, and disliked her repeating them.

Lenz could scarcely say a word early in the morning; his thoughts seemed to awake by degrees; he continued to dream long with his eyes open, and even while he was working. Annele on the contrary, the instant she opened her eyes, was like a soldier at his post, armed and ready; she commenced the day zealously, and all half-waking thoughts were hateful to her; she was and continued to be the smart, lively, landlord's daughter, owing to whose activity, the guests find everything in order at the earliest hour of the morning, and she herself ready to have a pleasant talk.

In the midst of the household bustle, Lenz often looked up at his mother's picture, as if saying to her: "Don't let your rest be disturbed; her great delight is noise and tumult."