Annele had said truly that there were no forfeited goods at the Morgenhalde. The landlady was often at the house, but Lenz held little communication with her. Well it was for her that Franzl was no longer there; for the new maid, a near relation of Annele's, made frequent journeys in the night between the Lion and the neighboring village, carrying heavy baskets full of things to be exchanged by Ernestine for money. Her husband, the shopkeeper, was the only one of the landlord's dependants who had not suffered. The clockmakers, instead of receiving ready money, had had the privilege of taking various stores from his shop on the landlord's security. The poor fellows found themselves now with no clocks and deep in debt. The shopkeeper told them frankly that they were better able to pay than the man who had given them security.
To all expressions of condolence Lenz had made answer that he should be able to stand his ground; but fearful and unexpected demands poured in upon him. Every petty creditor clamored for the instant payment of his farthing debt. All confidence, even in him, was destroyed. He knew not which way to turn. The heaviest claim of all, and one which he could not tell Annele, because she had given him fair warning on that very score, was for the security on Faller's house. The poor fellow came to him, quite beside himself with grief, to say that the owner of the house no longer considered Lenz's security valid, and that with his large family he saw no refuge open to him. Lenz promised him certain help. His good name and that of his parents could not fail to be honored. The world surely had not become so depraved as to have lost all regard for long-tried honesty.
Annele, who knew only of the lesser debts, advised Lenz to go to his uncle for assistance.
To his uncle indeed! The same disinclination to encounter disagreeable sights which made Petrovitsch invariably leave the village when a funeral was to take place, prompted him now to start off on a journey. The day after the landlord's disgrace he had disappeared, leaving his roadside harvest of unripe cherries to be gathered by the boys in the street; nor did he show himself again till the winter was well on, a new landlord established at the Lion, and the two old people settled in a house near the city, adjoining that of their son-in-law, the lumber-merchant.
The landlord had borne his fate with an equanimity almost deserving of admiration. Only once, at sight of the engineer driving his two bays, did his composure forsake him; but it was outside the town, and no one saw how he stumbled and fell into the ditch and lay grovelling there without the power to rise.
Petrovitsch took his walks now in another direction, and was no longer seen on the path by Lenz's house, nor in the wood, little of which indeed was now standing.
Lenz often spent half the night looking over his accounts and trying to make both ends meet. A way was offered at last; but the money burned as if hot from the Devil's mint.
Ernestine's husband appeared on the Morgenhalde with a stranger whom he presented to Lenz as a would-be purchaser of his house.
"What!" exclaimed Lenz, in great surprise; "my house?"
"Yes: it is worth much less now, as you say yourself, than it was before the wood was cut down. It stands in a very precarious position, but that can be partially remedied by precautionary measures."