"What! would you drive me mad?"
"No need of that. Lenz, she is not yet your betrothed; she is not yet your wife; there is still time for me to speak openly. It would be wrong to draw back now, but it would be only one wrong. If you marry Annele, you will be doing a thousand wrongs your life long. Lenz, she is no wife for you,--she least of any."
"You do not know her, only joking with her as you do. But I have learned her through and through,--her goodness, her cleverness."
"You think I do not know her? Why, I have eaten a bushel of salt with those people. I can describe them every one to you. Annele and her mother are so much alike they cannot bear one another, though they do pretend to be so fond in public. They exchange sweet speeches, because the guests eat and drink better when pleasant sounds are going on. But none of their soft words come from the heart. They have no heart. I never believed, till I knew them, that there could be such persons. They talk of kindness, of love, of pity, of patriotism too, perhaps, and religion; but these things are empty words to them, meaning nothing, prompting them to nothing. The world, they firmly believe, has agreed to use the names for effect, without any one attaching the least significance to them. Annele has not a ray of heart; and without heart I maintain there can be no right understanding. She can never enter into another's feelings and opinions; can neither share them nor yield to them. She can, like her mother, catch another person's words, and make a fine show with them. They both have a peculiar faculty of blaming, even scolding, in such a way that you cannot make out to the end whether it is a declaration of love or of war. Father, mother, and daughter make nice music together for the public edification. Annele plays first fiddle, the old woman second, and mine host a growling bass. He, I must say, is the only honest one in the house. Here, as everywhere, the female bees are the ones that sting, and how they sting! The landlord speaks charitably of his neighbors, and cannot bear to hear his wife and daughter abuse them. Their special delight is to tear to pieces the good name of wife or maid. The mother does it with a certain hypocritical compassion, but Annele plays with the world like a cat with a mouse; and the burden of the song always must be, you are the fairest, the healthiest, the cleverest, and, if it is any compliment, the best. I have often studied to make out what constitutes the essence of ill-breeding, which may be highly polished to the eye. True coarseness is pleasure in the misfortunes of others. O Lenz, you have not the key-note of that household; all your knowledge of music will not help you find it. It is nothing but mocking and lies. These people will never understand you, your wants and your tastes. I tell you, only he that is of the truth can understand and love the truth. You will be always a stranger to them."
"I am ashamed of you, Pilgrim. You are saying these things of persons whose house you have entered daily for eight years, at whose table you eat, and with whom you are apparently on friendly terms. What must I think of you?"
"That I go to an inn, eat, drink, and pay my money. I pay daily, and am done with them daily."
"I cannot understand you."
"I believe you. I have had to pay dear for my knowledge, and would rather have remained ignorant, like you. It is not pleasant to know people as they are. Yet the world has some--"
"And you think yourself one of the good ones?"
"Not exactly that. I thought you would turn against me. I must bear it. Abuse me, do with me what you will, cut my hand off,--I will gladly beg, if I may know that thus I have saved a man like you. Give up Annele, I entreat you. You have not asked her yet of her father. You are not bound."