SMITTEN TO THE HEART.
Lenz and Annele sat without in the sitting-room, neither speaking a
word. The child laughed and stretched out its little hands now towards
the light, and now towards its father's eyes, that were broodingly
fixed upon it. "If we must die, thank God our son is saved!" said Lenz.
Still Annele was silent. The monotonous ticking of the clocks was
suddenly interrupted by one of the musical works beginning to play a
hymn. For the first time the eyes of husband and wife met. Annele
changed the child's position on her lap, and clasped her hands over its
buoyant bosom.
"If you can pray," said Lenz, "you ought to be able to look into your
heart and repent."
"I have nothing to repent of in my conduct towards you; whatever other
sins I may have committed, I confess only to God. I have meant nothing
that was not kind and honest towards you."
"And I?"
"You did right too, as far as you knew how. I am more just to you than
you are to me. You would never put me in a position where I could earn
anything."
"And your horrible words?"
"Pooh! words break no bones."
Lenz implored her to be kind and peaceable before his uncle. "Your
uncle and the raven in the kitchen tell me we must die," she answered
as in a dream.
"You are not generally superstitious; I hope, for your sake, you are
not going to be so now. It was you who threw the writing and the plant
to the wind, and called on the storm to visit us."
Annele made no answer. After another interval of silence Lenz arose,
saying he would go on digging at the place where he had found his
uncle, for if he could dig through to the mountain, he should be able
to crawl out and summon help. Annele had her hand stretched out to
detain him, imagining the horror of having him buried in the snow, and
she and Petrovitsch too weak to dig him out. She had her hand stretched
out to detain him, but passed it over her face instead, and let him go.
He soon returned, however, and reported the snow to be so loose that
every space filled in again as soon as cleared. There was reason to
fear, also, that the snow still continued to fall. The best he could do
was to shovel out again what he had been obliged to bring into the
house, and push a clothes-press against the entrance, where the
battered door no longer served as a protection.
His wet clothes had to be changed for his Sunday suit; it was no
wedding garment he put on.
"Five years ago to-day," he murmured, "many sleighs stood before the
door of the Lion inn; would that the guests were here now to dig us
out!"
Petrovitsch had awaked from a short sleep, but still lay quiet in bed
in the sleeping-room. He thought over with calmness all that had
happened. Haste and complaints were here equally unavailing. Yesterday
he had recalled his whole past life, had lived it over again in a few
short moments, and here was the end. He accepted it with indifference.
How to conduct himself towards those in the next room was the question
that chiefly occupied him. At last he called Lenz and asked for his
clothes, as he wished to get up. Lenz advised him to remain where he
was, for the sitting-room was cold and his clothes wet, there being no
way of lighting a fire. Petrovitsch, however, still desired to get up,
and asked if there was no comfortable dressing-gown in the house.
"One of my father's," replied Lenz; "will you have that?"
"If there is no other, give me that," said Petrovitsch, angrily, while
in his heart was a sorrow, almost a fear, at the thought of wearing
what had been his brother's.
"You look quite like my father in it," cried Lenz; "quite like him,
only a little smaller."
"I had a hard youth, or I should have been larger," said the old man,
looking at himself in the glass, as he entered the room. The cry of the
raven in the kitchen startled him; he imperatively ordered Lenz to kill
the bird. Lenz's chief occupation, however, for the time was to keep
the peace between Bubby and the cat. The dog betrayed his discomfort by
continued barks and whines, till the cat was finally shut up in the
kitchen, where she did them good service by silencing the raven.
Petrovitsch called for more cherry-brandy, of which Lenz said there
were happily three bottles left of his mother's making, at least twelve
years ago; with hot water and sugar he mixed himself a nice glass of
grog. "How absurd all this is!" he cried, growing talkative under its
genial influence; "I have dragged my body over the whole world, only to
be squeezed to death in my father's house. It serves me right; why
could I not have conquered that foolish homesickness? Homesickness
indeed!" he gave a laugh of derision and continued: "there is an
insurance on my life, but of what use is that to me now? Do you know
who has buried us here? that man of honor, the stout landlord,
destroyed the forest over our heads."
"Alas! he buries his child and his child's child with us," added Lenz.
"You are neither of you fit to mention my father's name," cried Annele,
passionately. "My father was unfortunate, but he was never dishonest.
If you say another word against him, I will set fire to the house."
"You are mad!" cried Petrovitsch; "shall we thank him for throwing this
little snow-ball at our heads? Be quiet, Annele; come, sit here by me;
give me your hand. I have something to say to you, Annele; I never
fancied that you yourself were quite good and true; but now I see you
are. I like you for not letting any word of blame fall on your father.
Few keep loyal to a ruined man. 'Oh, how I love you!' is only heard as
long as we have money in our pocket. I like you for it, Annele." Annele
cast a quick glance at her husband, whose eyes were fixed on the
ground.
"It is well that we should spend this hour together," continued
Petrovitsch; "who knows but it may be our last? Let us come to a full
and free understanding with each other. Draw your chair nearer, Lenz.
You looked for consolation from your wife in your misfortune. Because
you were dissatisfied with yourself and could give yourself no praise,
you craved it from others, instead of helping her, the proud Annele of
the Lion. You are proud, Annele, you need not shake your head. A good
thing pride is; I only wish Lenz had a little more of it. Your turn is
coming; don't be impatient."
"Yes," cried Annele; "he deceived me, he said he had given up the
security for Faller; it was false."
"I did not tell you so; I only tried to escape from your
importunities."
"Your turn is coming. Now tell me one thing, on your honor, Annele,"
continued Petrovitsch. "Did you know when you married Lenz that your
father was a ruined man?"
"Must I tell you honestly?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, I swear before God, that I knew my father was no longer
rich, although I thought he had still a considerable property. I liked
Lenz while we were rich, but then my mother would not hear of my
marrying him. She was very ambitious for her daughters, and especially
disliked the idea of one of us living with a mother-in-law."
"For yourself, then, you would have come to my mother had she been
living? Pilgrim said you would not."
"If Pilgrim said so, he was right. I said many foolish things as a
girl, that I might be thought well of and be praised for my saucy wit."
Lenz looked earnestly at her, and Petrovitsch went on: "Talk no more of
that yet, till I ask you some questions. You both deceived each other
and yourselves. You both persuaded yourselves you were marrying from
pure love, when in reality each thought the other rich; and when that
turned out not to be the case, mutual anger and recriminations arose
between you. Say, Lenz; did you not think Annele was rich."
"I did think so; but, uncle, that is not the cause of the misery that
consumes me,--of my bleeding heart and my burning brain. I thought the
landlord was rich, but I did not care for his money."
"And you, Annele?"
"I did not think Lenz was rich. You may tear me in pieces between you
if you will; I did not."
"You have not made a full confession yet; one thing, however, you will
admit, that you are both sick with the same disease. You, Lenz, prided
yourself on your good-nature, and you on your cleverness, did you not,
Annele?"
"I did not pride myself on my cleverness, but I am more capable and
more experienced than he, and better able to take care of myself. If he
had let me have my way, and be at the head of a hotel, we should not
now be in misery and waiting for death."
"And what measures did you take to persuade him to do as you liked?"
"I showed him that he was a do-little, a good-for-nothing pin-sticker.
I deny nothing. I took all the life out of him; I said whatever came to
my lips, and the more it pained him, the better I was pleased."
"Annele, do you believe in hell?"
"I must, for I have it before me. I am in the power of you two men; can
any hell be worse? 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. "Think of one thing you said:
that my good deeds were only a cloak for my laziness, and that I
ill-treated my mother. My mother! In one hour perhaps we shall stand
before her; how can you meet her face to face?"
Annele was silent. Petrovitsch, too angry to speak, sat pressing his
teeth against his lips, till at last he broke out: "Annele, if Lenz had
throttled you when you said those words, he would have been hung, but
he would have been innocent in the sight of God. You inn-keeper's
daughter, used to the wretched rabble that haunts a tavern, you have a
quick wit of your own, and hearing from some gallows-bird of a
postilion that the way to urge a horse in a race was to put burning
tinder in his ears, you laid your words like burning tinder in Lenz's
ears, and drove him mad. 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.
Without uttering a word Annele sank lifeless to the ground.