EVERYTHING GONE.
The Commissioners of Bankruptcy dragged everything into open day, and
then came to light all the "Lion's" secret doings. The Landlord then
appeared in all his iniquity.
In order to give security to people who, being strangers, were cautious
in their dealings with him, he had deliberately deceived those who were
connected with him, and dependent on him. Even his own postilions had
lost their hardly earned savings. Poor clockmakers went up and down the
village, complaining that the Landlord had robbed them of months and
years of their lives, and they would all have been ready to swear that
he was the most upright man in the whole country, far or near. The
Landlady fared no better, in spite of her affectation of entire
innocence. She had always made a great show in her house, and talked so
big, and been so condescending to everybody! The Landlord had only
deceived by his silence, and gloried in being called an honest man
right and left, and correct and accurate into the bargain.
Many of the creditors came to Lenz at the Morgenhalde; they were not
deterred by the distance; being in the village, at all events they
thought they had a right to see the whole extent of the misfortune. It
was from a mixture of compassion, and the wish to console him for his
still greater losses, that they all deplored that Lenz should have been
so shamefully taken in. Many comforted him by saying that perhaps he
would inherit from his uncle, and assured him that if he one day became
rich, they would ask no compensation from him,--indeed they had no
right to do so. Wherever Lenz was seen, he was pitied and condoled with
on the wickedness of his father-in-law, who had robbed his own son.
There was only one solitary individual who still spoke a good word for
the Landlord of the "Lion," and that was Pilgrim, and he did so
cordially; always maintaining, in Lenz's house, that the Landlord had
only been deceived in his calculations, that he had placed entire faith
in the success of his Brazilian speculation, which had failed, and that
he was not a bad man: this entirely won Annele's heart, for she had
always been very fond of her father. She did not hesitate openly to
admit that her mother was a hypocrite; and yet they were constantly
closeted together; and it was reported in the village that the Landlady
was anxious to dispose of all the things she had secreted, by conveying
them to Lenz's house. A poor clockmaker came straight to Lenz one day,
and declared he would not say a word of these secret doings if he was
only paid his own deposit. Lenz summoned his wife, and told her that he
would never forgive her, if she received into the house one single
article that ought to have been given up to the creditors. Annele swore
on the head of her child, that such a thing had never occurred and
never should. Lenz removed her hand from the head of the child, for he
disliked all oaths. Annele told the truth, for the house on the
Morgenhalde harboured no forfeited property. The mother-in-law was,
however, often there. Lenz seldom spoke to her, and it proved very
convenient that Franzl was no longer one of the family, for the new
maid--a near relation of Annele's--conveyed repeatedly at night to the
adjacent village, heavy baskets from the "Lion," and the grocer's wife,
Ernestine, managed to turn all their contents into money.
People had pitied Lenz, because his father-in-law's ruin would probably
be fatal to him also. He had answered confidently that he would stand
firm; now, however, there was an incessant coming and going. Wherever
Lenz owed a few kreuzers they were demanded from him, and he no longer
got credit from anyone. Lenz did not know which way to turn, and he
dared not confess to Annele the most severe blow of all, for she had
warned him against it,--in the midst of all these troubles, Faller's
creditors called up the sum due on his house; Lenz's security being no
longer valid in their eyes. Faller was in an agony of distress when he
was forced to tell this to Lenz, bewailing that, being a married man,
he did not know where to lay his head.
Lenz unhesitatingly promised him speedy help; his former good name, and
that of his parents, would still be remembered. The world cannot be so
hard as to forget the well known integrity of his family.
Annele only knew of the smaller debts, and said:--"Go to your uncle, he
must assist you."
Yes, to his uncle! Petrowitsch made a point of invariably leaving the
village when a funeral took place there--not from compassion--but it
was a disagreeable sight--and the very day after the ruin of the
Landlord, Petrowitsch left home, yielding up on this occasion the
unripe cherries in his avenue, as a harvest to the passers by, and he
did not return till winter had fairly set in, and a new landlord
settled in the "Golden Lion," the old proprietors having gone to live
in a house adjoining that of their son-in-law, the wood merchant, in a
neighbouring town. The old Landlord of the "Lion" had borne his fate
with almost admirable equanimity; once only, at a little distance from
the village, when the Techniker drove past him in his caleche, with his
two chesnuts, the Landlord lost his usual phlegmatic composure, but no
one saw him stagger and stumble into a ditch, where he lay for a long
time, till at last he managed to scramble out.
Petrowitsch walked now in a different direction. He no longer passed
Lenz's house, nor went to the wood, which was, indeed, by this time
nearly cut down.
Lenz used to sit up late calculating; he could devise nothing, and soon
a sum was offered to him, but it seemed to him as burning as if it had
been coined in the Devil's workshop.
Ernestine's husband came one day with a stranger to the Morgenhalde,
and said:--"Lenz, here is a person who will buy your house."
"What do you mean? my house?"
"Yes, you said so yourself; it is of much less value now that it
formerly was, for since the wood has been felled, its situation is very
dangerous, but still proper precautions may be taken."
"Who, pray, said I wished to sell my house?"
"Your wife."
"What? my wife? Come in: Annele, did you say I would sell my house?"
"Not exactly; I only said to Ernestine, that if her husband knew of a
respectable inn in a good situation, we would buy it, and then sell our
house here."
"But it is more prudent," said the Grocer, "to dispose of your house
first; with ready money in hand, you will easily get a suitable inn."
Lenz looked pale and agitated, but simply said:--"I have no intention
whatever of selling my house."
The Grocer and his friend were angry and displeased at such capricious
people, who would take no advice, and caused so much trouble for
nothing.
Lenz nearly got into a rage with them, but he had sufficient command
over himself to say nothing in reply. When he was at last left alone
with Annele, she did not speak a word, though he looked at her several
times; he at length said:--"Why did you do this to me?"
"To you? I did nothing to you; but it must be so--we shall have no
peace till we leave this place. I won't stay here any longer, and I am
determined to keep an inn, and you shall see that I will make more by
it in a single year, ay, three times as much as you, with all your
worry about your pegs and wheels."
"And do you really think you can force me to take such a step?"
"You will thank me one day for insisting on it; it is not easy to force
you to give up your old ways, and to leave this house."
"I am leaving it now, this minute," said Lenz in a low voice; and,
hastily drawing on his coat, he left the house.
Annele ran after him a few steps.
"Where are you going to, Lenz?"
He made no answer, but proceeded to climb the hill.
When he reached the crest of the hill, he looked round once. There lay
his paternal house; no longer sheltered by trees, it looked bleak and
naked, and he felt as if his whole life had been also laid bare. He
turned again, and rushed on further. His idea was to go far, far away,
and when he returned he might be different, and the world also. He
plodded on further and further, and yet an irresistible impulse urged
him to turn back. At last he sat down on the stump of a tree, and
covered his face with both his hands. It was a still, mild, autumnal
afternoon, the sun had kindly intentions towards the earth, and more
especially to the Morgenhalde; he still shed warm rays on the felled
trees which he had shone on, and renovated, for so many long years. The
magpies were chattering fluently on the chesnut trees below, and the
woodpecker sometimes put in his word. All was night and death within
Lenz's soul. A child suddenly said: "Man! come, and help me with this."
Lenz rose and helped Faller's eldest little girl, who had been
collecting chips, to place her basket on her shoulder. The child
started when she recognized Lenz, and ran down the hill. Lenz gazed
long after her.
It was quite night when he came home. He did not say a word, and sat
for more than an hour looking down fixedly. He then glanced up at his
tools hanging on the wall, with a singular, earnest expression, as if
he were trying to remember what they were, and what purpose they were
meant to serve.
The child in the next room began to cry; Annele went to it, and the
only way she could pacify it was by singing.
A mother will sing for the sake of her child, even if her heart is
crushed by a burden of sorrow. Lenz then rose and went into the next
room, and said:--
"Annele, I was on the point of leaving the country for ever--yes, you
may laugh: I knew that you would laugh."
"I am not laughing; it already occurred to me, that perhaps it would be
a good thing if you could travel for a year, and try to retrieve our
fortunes; possibly you might return with some sense, and things would
go on more smoothly."
It cut Lenz to the heart that Annele should be eager for him to leave
her, but he only said--"I could not make up my mind to go, when
everything went well with me, still less can I do so now, when I am so
miserable at heart. I am nothing, and good for nothing, if I have not a
single happy thought in my soul."
"Now I must laugh at you," said Annele, "you could not travel, either
when you were happy, or unhappy."
"I don't understand you; I never did understand you, or you me."
"The worst of all is, that there is not only misery without, but misery
within."
"Put an end to it then, and be kind and good."
"Don't speak so loud, you will wake the child again," said Annele; as
soon as this subject engaged her thoughts, she would not utter a
syllable.
Lenz returned to the next room; and when Annele came in, leaving the
door ajar, he said:--"Now that we are in sorrow, we should love and
cherish each other more than ever; it is the only comfort left to us,
and yet you will not--why will you not?"
"Love cannot be forced."
"Then I must go away."
"And I will stay at home," said Annele, in a desponding voice, "I will
stay with my children."
"They are as much mine as yours."
"No doubt;" said Annele, in a hard tone.
"There is the clock beginning to play its old melodies," said Lenz,
hurriedly, "I cannot bear to hear a single tone--never again! If one of
them could dash out my brains, it would be best, for I cannot get a
single thought out of them. Can't you say a kind word to me, Annele?"
"I don't know any."
"Then I will say one--Let us make peace, and all will be well."
"I am quite content to do so."
"Can't you throw your arms round my neck, and rejoice that I am here
again?"
"Not tonight; perhaps tomorrow I may."
"And if I were to die this very night?"
"Then I should be a widow."
"And marry another?"
"If any one would have me."
"You wish to drive me mad."
"I need not do much for that."
"Oh! Annele, what will be the end of all this?"
"God knows!"
"Annele! was there not a time when we loved each other dearly?"
"Yes; I suppose we once did."
"And cannot it be so again?"
"I don't know."
"Why do you give me such answers?"
"Because you ask me such questions."
Lenz hid his face with his hands, and sat thus half the night; he tried
to reflect on his position, and why, in addition to the wreck of his
fortune, there should also be the wreck of his happiness--it was,
indeed, horrible! He could not discover the cause, though he thought
over all that had occurred from his wedding day to the present
time:--"I cannot find it out," cried he; "if a voice from Heaven would
only tell me!"--but no voice came from Heaven, all was still and silent
in the house; the clocks alone continued to tick together. Lenz looked
long out at the window.
The night was calm; nothing stirred, but snow laden clouds were
hurrying along, high up in the sky.
Far off yonder on the hill, a light is burning at the blacksmith's
house; it burned the whole night the blacksmith died today.
"Why did he die instead of me? I would so gladly have died." Life and
death chased each other in wild confusion through Lenz's soul; the
living seemed to him no longer to live, nor the dead to die--the whole
of life is only one long calamity--no bird ever sung, no man ever
uplifted his voice in melody.
Lenz's forehead fell on the window sill, he started up in terror, and
to escape such horrible waking dreams, he sought repose and
forgetfulness in sleep.
Annele had been long asleep: he gazed intently at her. If he could only
read her dreams; if he could only succour her--her and himself too.