"We have lived together too long to be talking of marrying," interposed Lenz. "Let us have dinner."
At table he related the affair of the wood. "Do you know what the result will be?" asked Annele.
"What?"
"Nothing but your having to pay the wood-cutters' wages."
"That remains to be proved," said Lenz, and immediately after dinner went again in search of the mayor, whom he had failed to find earlier in the day.
On the way he was joined by poor Faller, pale as death, and crying: "Oh, this is horrible, horrible! A thunder-bolt from a clear sky!"
Lenz tried to reassure him. Two and a half thousand florins was something of a loss, to be sure, but he hoped to stand under it. He thanked his faithful comrade for his sympathy.
"What!" cried Faller, stopping short on the road, "are you involved too? He owes me thirty-one florins. He had that amount of mine in good clocks, that I left with him as I should have left them in the bank, meaning to pay off an instalment upon my house. Now I am put back at least two years."
Lenz hurried on. He could not stop with his friend, but must be off to the mayor's.
Faller looked sadly after him, almost forgetting his own misfortune in that of his friend.