Pilgrim brought with him, and laid in the baby's cradle, a huge paper, containing a great number of signatures and illuminated by himself. It was a diploma of the Liederkranz, he said, making the new-comer, in virtue of his unquestionably good voice, an honorary member of that society.
"Do you know the sweetest tone in all the world?" asked Lenz,--"the first cry of one's child. Here is something else for you, my son. Take hold; see how he grasps it!" He put into the baby's little hand his father's file, as if for a special consecration; but Annele snatched it away.
"The child might kill itself with that sharp edge," she cried, and threw the instrument with such violence to the ground as to break off the point.
"There is my precious heirloom broken," said Lenz, sadly.
Pilgrim tried to console him, and declared, laughing, that there must ever be new men and new tools in the world. Annele said not a word.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE PENDULUMS SWING EACH IN ITS OWN DIRECTION,
AND THE CORD IS STRAINED ALMOST TO BREAKING.
"Come here a minute, Annele, I have something to show you."
"I have no time."
"Just look; it will amuse you. See, I have set two pendulums on these two clocks swinging different ways; one from right to left, the other from left to right. In a few days they will both swing together, either from right to left or the other way. The force of attraction that they exercise upon each other gradually brings them to an exact correspondence."