Ernestine, the shopkeeper's wife, had been at the Lion for days beforehand helping on the preparations. This was no time to be sensitive at not having been visited or specially invited. The great house entertains, and the vassals must come of themselves.
Ernestine had left her children in charge of a neighbor and her husband to see to the house, tend the shop, and do his own cooking while she was away. When the Lion calls, no other duties must be regarded.
She knew all the arrangements of the house, and could put her hand on whatever was wanted. She presided over kitchen and cellar, enjoying her importance. The dressing of Annele, too, on the wedding morning, fell to her share, as there was no more intimate friend to claim the right.
The Lion showed that day what a wide circle of friends and patrons it had. The whole first-floor, running the entire width of the house, was turned into a single hall. The partition walls, which were nothing but boards, were taken down, so that the space was now really a great market-place with a fire in it.
Lenz would naturally have preferred a quiet wedding, but Annele was quite right in arranging otherwise. "I know what you would like," she said; "but we have no right to deprive our acquaintances of their good time. Besides, we are only married once in a lifetime. These people give us trouble enough the year through, we ought to let them have a chance to show their gratitude. Where is there a wedding anywhere about that we don't carry presents? Two thousand florins is the least we have spent in that way. Now let them give us a share. I ask no favors, only to be paid back a portion of what is owed us."
The wedding presents were, indeed, rich and abundant, both in money and in money's worth. Two days had to be given up to the marriage festivities,--one for neighbors and relations, the second for more distant acquaintances.
Pilgrim appeared at Lenz's house, on the wedding morning, with well-sleeked hair, and a bunch of rosemary in his button-hole. "I bring you no wedding present," he said.
"My mother's picture was present enough."
"That counts for nothing. I cannot do what I very well know custom requires of me on such an occasion. The truth is, Lenz, I have made myself a present on your wedding day. Do you see this paper? It makes me like the Siegfried we used to read about. I am proof against all the thrusts of fortune, with this hard shell about me."
"What is the paper?"