"Very well, then tell me how has this been so quickly brought about?"
"I don't myself very well know; it came on me like an inspiration from heaven, and now it is plain enough to me, that for a long time past I have thought of nothing else."
"I suspected as much, but I did think you would do nothing without me."
"Nor will I; you must go with me tomorrow, to propose in due form on my behalf to her father."
"So! I am glad of that, for then I hope the affair will soon be at an end."
"What! do you wish to drive me crazy?"
"No need for that; as yet she is neither your betrothed, nor your wife, So I may speak freely. Lenz, it would be an indiscretion were you now to draw back, but only an indiscretion; but if you marry Annele, you will do wrong during your whole life. Lenz, she is no wife for you."
"You do not know her. You always teaze each other; but I know her inmost heart, and I know her to be thoroughly good and amiable."
"I don't know her, do you say? and yet I have eaten at least a bushel of salt with these people. I will tell you exactly how it is. Annele and her mother are very much alike, and for this very reason they can't bear each other, however loving they may appear before the world. All their talk is nothing but flimsy music. People eat and drink better when they have music; not a note proceeds from their hearts,—they have no hearts. I never could have believed that there were such people in the world, but it is so; they can talk away glibly about kindness, love, and pity, and even sometimes of religion, and of their Fatherland,—but all these are mere words; they have no serious thoughts, they don't care for these things, and firmly believe that all men are accustomed to converse in that manner; but the facts themselves never trouble them in the slightest degree. Annele herself has not a spark of real feeling, and I maintain that a person who has no heart can have no understanding, nor be capable of entering into the feelings of another, of sharing their joys and their sorrows, or yielding to their wishes. Annele, like her mother, has the knack of listening to others, and then cleverly repeating their words; and she has also a peculiar talent for depreciating and harshly censuring her neighbour, but in such a way that it is difficult to discern whether she is praising or blaming. Father, mother, and daughter, make a fine trio of frivolous music; Annele plays the first violin, the old woman the second, and the pompous old Landlord, the great bass; still I must say he is the best of the family. It is a well known fact, that it is only female bees that can sting—and how they can sting to be sure! The Landlord talks well of everyone, and can't bear to hear his wife and daughter abuse people—for no occupation is more grateful to them, than blighting the good name of any girl or married woman. The mother does so with a kind of hypocritical compassion, but Annele likes to sport with slander, as a cat does with a mouse. The burden of their song is always to show that they are best and cleverest, and they think this redounds to their credit.
"I have often reflected in what the most cruel barbarity in this world consists, and I feel convinced it is in malignity towards others, and yet it often assumes a very polite mask. Oh, Lenz! you don't know the key in which that house is set, and no knowledge of music will help you to know it. There is nothing there but scoffing and lies."