"And the factory?"
"Who is to be admitted besides yourself?"
"I know of no one yet but Pröbler, whose ingenious inventions have certainly earned him a place."
"Ha, ha! that is too good; you and Pröbler! You are capital yokefellows. Did I not always tell you you would come down to his level? But you are more pitiful than he, for he at least has not dragged down a wife and children. Out of my sight, you poor, miserable milksop! Let yourself be yoked to the same team with Pröbler!" She snatched the child from its father's knee and, turning the torrent of her words upon the terrified boy, continued, passionately: "Your father is a pitiful milksop, who needs to have the bottle always held to his lips. Pity his mother is not alive to make his pap for him! Oh, how low have I fallen! But one thing I insist upon, you shall not enter the factory; I will drown myself and my children first. When I am dead you can go and ask the doctor's crooked daughter to leave her weeds and marry you."
Lenz sat motionless, chilled with horror.
"Mention not my mother's name," he cried at last. "Leave her to her eternal rest."
"I have no objection to leaving her. I neither want nor have anything of hers."
"What? Have you no longer that sprig of edelweiss? Tell me, have you not kept it?"
"Stuff and nonsense! of course I have kept it."
"Where? Give it to me!"