Lenz said nothing. The usual routine must be resumed. The world does not stand still because a heart has ceased to beat for ever, or because a mourner would fain be still for ever, too. Lenz continued to work assiduously. The journeyman mentioned that a young artificer in Freiberg had come home from his travels, and that it was his intention to erect a manufactory of clocks at his own expense, and to settle in this vicinity.
"I might sell my whole stock to him," thought Lenz, "and then I could see with my own eyes, at last, how the world looks." But this idea of leaving home only recurred to his mind as a remembrance of something that he had wished once on a time, but long ago. He no longer felt any inward impulse in the matter; and precisely because his uncle had spread a report of his intention to travel, in order to constrain him to do so, he felt perverse and unwilling to go. He once more took up his father's file and looked at it intently, as if to say—"During his whole life, the man who guided this file, with the exception of a short absence in his early youth, remained stationary on this spot, and lived happily. To be sure—— he married young, which is a different thing."
Usually Lenz sent his apprentice to the Foundry on the other side of the hill, but to-day he went himself. When he returned, he did not sit long at his work. It would be very wrong not to go to see Pilgrim. Before noon he went down the hill, through the village, and across the meadow to Pilgrim. His worthy comrade was seated at his easel, painting. He rose—run his two hands through his long straight sandy hair, and gave Lenz his right hand; who now told him what joy the portrait had caused him, and how kind and thoughtful he considered his friend in giving him so agreeable a surprise.
"Pooh!" said Pilgrim, carelessly plunging both hands into his wide pockets. "I benefit myself by it. It is so desperately tiresome, year after year, to paint our primitive village; the church, with its mitre for a church tower, and so large a hole that a dial-plate might go into it; and the mower with his scythe stands there always on the same spot everlastingly; and the woman with the child going to meet him never reaches him; the child stretches out its hands, but it never joins its father; and the booby of a man stands there with his back to them, and I have no notion what kind of face he has—and yet hundreds and hundreds of times, I have been obliged to paint this confounded landscape of verdigris hue. So it is: the world will always have the same thing over and over again. I do believe I could paint the thing blindfold, and yet I must go at it again and again. Now I have pleased myself by painting your mother, though I no longer take portraits, for I have no fancy for any of the faces round here, and I would not be so spiteful towards generations yet unborn, as to force them to look at such physiognomies. Your uncle is right in positively refusing to be painted. Not long ago, when a travelling artist applied to him, he said—'No, no, or I shall probably be hung up in some pawnbroker's shop, at some distant day, along with Napoleon and old Fritz.' That man has most singular, quaint ideas!"
"What have you to do with my uncle just now? You painted my mother's picture for me, I know."
"Certainly, if you choose to accept of it Come, place yourself here. I am not quite satisfied with the eyes—I cannot catch the right expression. You have exactly your mother's eyes; so sit down there—so—just there. Now sit still, and think of something pleasant, or of giving away something. It was famous in you to become security for Faller, Think of that, and then you will have your mother's look that warmed the heart. Don't smile. But she was so good, so sincere, so—so——. Now, now I have it. Don't move an eyelash.—Now I can't paint any more when you are crying."
"My eyes overflowed," said Lenz, in an apologetic tone, "for I could not help thinking that my mother's eyes——"
"Never mind!—I have finished. I know now what to do. Come, let us be done working—besides, it is noon already. You will dine with me, I hope?"
"No—don't take it amiss; but I must dine with uncle Petrowitsch.
"I am never angry with you. Now tell me your plans."