"Do you think I would have gone to them and said:—'My guardian, Pilgrim, desires his compliments, and bids me say that he thinks I ought to marry one of you: Amanda, if possible.' No, no; these young ladies are too high and refined for me."
"They are, indeed, refined; while Annele only pretends to be so. The fact is, you were shy with the Doctor's daughters, but not with Annele; you could go into the 'Lion,' without anyone asking you why you came there. Oh! I see it all! Annele talked to you about your sorrow, for she can talk on any subject, and that softened your heart. Annele wears a leather pocket in every one of her gowns, and her heart is nothing but leather, where she has always small coin ready to give every guest his change in full."
"You are committing a sin, a great sin!" said Lenz, his lip quivering from anger and grief; and to prove to Pilgrim how cruelly unjust he was towards Annele, he related to him how kindly and touchingly Annele had spoken to him, both about the death of his mother, and at the time when he sent away his clock; he had cherished every word like a revelation.
"My own money! my own coin!" cried Pilgrim. "She has plundered a beggar! What a confounded, stupid idiot I have been! Every syllable she said to you she picked up from my lips. I was such a fool as to say these very words before her, from time to time. I well deserve it all! but how could I possibly guess that she was to entrap you with my words? Oh! my poor coins!"
The two friends remained silent for a time. Pilgrim bit his lips till they bled, and Lenz shook his head incredulously; at last Pilgrim resumed the discussion by saying:—"Do you know Annele's principal reason for accepting you? Not from your tall figure nor your good heart; not for your property either! No, these are all very secondary considerations. Her real motive is to prevent one of the Doctor's daughters getting you. 'Aha! you shan't get him, but I shall!' Believe me, Annele is a creature that you cannot judge of; you cannot believe that there are people who have no real delight or happiness, unless their enjoyment makes some one else miserable; or unless they can triumph in the thought that they are envied for their riches, their beauty, or their good fortune. I never knew there were such people in the world till I knew Annele. My Lenz, don't you try to know anything further of her, for she will make you miserable. Why do you look so strangely at me, and never say a word? Attack me, do what you will, say what you choose to me, only give up Annele, for she is poison! I implore of you to renounce her. One very important point, too, I quite forgot: think of it, and God grant that you may not think of it too late; I do not wish to be a prophet of evil, but Annele will never live to be old."
"Ha, ha! I suppose you intend now to make out that she has bad health: her face is like the rose and the lily blended."
"That is not what I meant; but something very different: remember your mother; was there ever any one who was so pleasant to look at? because her kind heart was seen in her face; kindness for everyone, and her love for you, and anxiety about you: that makes an old face charming, and it does one's heart good to look at it. As for Annele, when she can no longer plait her hair in a coronet, and has lost her fresh complexion, and cannot show her white teeth when she laughs, what will remain? She has nothing to grow old on; she has no soul, she has only plausible speeches; no good heart, no good sense; all she can do is to scoff at others; when she is an old woman, she will be nothing but the devil's grandmother!"
Lenz pressed his teeth violently against his lips, and at last said:—"You have said enough; far too much, indeed! Not another word! But I must exact one thing from you, which is, that you are not to speak of her in such a way except to me, and even to me this day for the last time, and to no one else; no one! I love my Annele, and—and—you also; you may say what you will in your jealousy. I no longer wish that you should go with me when I make my offer. Fortunately these four walls alone have heard what has passed. Good night, Pilgrim!"
"Good night, Lenz!"