SAVED.
"I hear two distinct knocks following each other," cried Lenz; "I will
give a signal in answer; I will set the clocks all playing."
He did so, but the confusion of sounds quite stupefied him; even at
this moment of deadly anguish, the discord was insupportable to him. In
his excitement, he had injured the mechanism of the largest musical
clock, which went to his heart.
Again they held their breath and listened eagerly, but all was still.
"I rejoiced too soon," said Petrowitsch, his teeth chattering from
excitement, "we are still nearer death than life."
Again distinct knocks were heard, and Petrowitsch complained that the
hammering seemed to knock his head, and that every blow went through
his brain.
Lenz could not have set the clocks properly, for suddenly one of them
began to play the air of the grand Hallelujah, and Lenz sang with
it:--"Hallelujah! Praise God, the Lord!"
Annele sang with him, placing one hand on Lenz's shoulder, and
the other on the head of her child, and up above a voice
shouted--"Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"
"Pilgrim! my dearest of all friends!" cried Lenz, in a voice that was
heartrending.
The door of the room was broken in with a hatchet.
"Are you all still alive?" cried Pilgrim.
"Praise and thanks be to the Lord! we are--all of us."
Pilgrim first hugged Petrowitsch, whom he took for Lenz, and the old
man kissed him on both cheeks, Russian fashion.
Immediately after Pilgrim, the Techniker appeared, followed by Faller,
Don Bastian, and all the members of the Choral Society.
"Is my boy all right?" asked Lenz.
"Indeed he is, I left him in my house," said Don Bastian.
By this time the snow was shovelled away from the window.
"The sun! the sun! I see the sun once more!" cried Annele, sinking on
her knees.
The musical clock continued playing the Hallelujah, the Schoolmaster
joined, and the whole of the Choral Society sung with him in full loud
tones. It seemed as if an impetus had been given to the mass of snow by
the powerful chorus, for the avalanche rolled away from the front of
the house down into the valley.
The house stood free.
The door had remained open, and the moment the windows were also thrown
up, the raven shot away into the sky, over the heads of all the
assembled people.
"The bird is off," cried the child.
Outside, however, a raven had been long wheeling about, waiting for its
mate; and now they flew along together, first high into the air, and
then dipping down in circles far away over the valley.
The first woman who came up to Annele, was Ernestine, her cousin, who
had heard of the sad catastrophe, and also of the death of the
Landlady, Annele's mother, and had hurried to Annele in the hope of
comforting her; she knelt down beside her; Lenz was leaning on Pilgrim.
Petrowitsch was becoming very indignant, that nobody took any charge of
him, when luckily the Techniker came up to him just in time, wishing
him joy of his providential escape. "So far so good," thought the old
man; "this is the only well bred man of the whole band." Pilgrim too
was very kind, and said aloud: "I beg your pardon for having hugged you
so tight; I took you for Lenz: pray shake hands with me."
Petrowitsch gave him his hand instantly.
"I found a piece of your mother's writing in the snow," said Faller in
a hoarse voice; "the words are almost effaced, but you can still
see--'This plant is called Edelweiss--Marie Lenz.'"
"That paper is mine!" exclaimed Annele, starting to her feet. All
looked at her in astonishment, and Ernestine screamed out:--"Annele,
Annele! Look at her for God's sake! her hair is as white as snow!"
Annele went to the glass and uttered a cry of horror, and, clasping her
hands over her head, she cried:--"An old woman, an old woman!" and sunk
into Lenz's arms; after a time she rose sobbing, dried her tears, and
whispered to Lenz: "This is my Edelweiss, grown under the snow."