In vain did Faller protest his innocence of all evil intentions: he begged pardon, and conjured her to listen to him; but it was all no use. Annele showed him the door—so at last he left her, and Annele did not vouchsafe him even a parting glance.
Soon after Faller came Franzl, beaming with joy. The mother took her forthwith into the back parlour. Franzl had been rejoicing that she had managed this affair, and thought she could now die happy; but it proved, to her consternation, that she had ascribed to herself much more merit than she deserved, and now she got none at all. The Landlady soon made her feel her mistake by saying—"Well, Franzl, what do you think about this? You had nothing to do with the affair, and I quite as little. The young people were sharper than we were. You and I were talking a few days ago as to what might come to pass, and all the time behind our backs they had settled everything. I could have believed this of Annele, but not of Lenz. But it is better so; and as God has willed it, let us thank him for his goodness."
Franzl stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, but she was obliged to go home without a scrap of praise or anything else, and Annele scarcely condescended to notice her.—Then Pilgrim came.
Annele behaved in a very different manner to Pilgrim than she had done to Faller. She knew that he did not like her; but before he had said a single word she thanked him for his warm sympathy, and Pilgrim treated the whole affair in a good-humoured and facetious manner, hinting that no man was to be trusted, or Lenz would not have kept the matter so close. He thought he thus saved his conscience, and yet did not disturb what was now a settled thing.
But the toughest wood to saw through, yet remained: this was Petrowitsch; and the father resolved to be present. When Petrowitsch came as usual to dinner, he affected to know nothing. The Landlord communicated the fact to him officially, and said that Lenz was expected every minute to dinner. Annele was very childlike and submissive to the old man, and seemed almost as if she intended to throw herself on her knees to ask his blessing. He stretched out his hand kindly to her. The Landlady, too, wished to get hold of his hand, but she only succeeded in grasping two fingers of his left hand. Lenz was glad when he came, to find all going on so smoothly. He was only vexed that Pilgrim, who had spoken so much against them all, should be seated at the same table; but Pilgrim seemed quite unconcerned, so Lenz was soon the same.
The sky looked down sourly on Lenz's betrothal: it rained incessantly for several days following. The rain kept trickling on like one of those incessant talkers who chatter without ceasing. Lenz was of course constantly at the "Lion" Inn, where everything was so comfortable, and every one as well cared for as in his own house. One day, when there were sixteen different tables in the large public room, Lenz told Annele it was like a well frequented marketplace.
"You are witty," said she. "I must tell my father that—it will amuse him."
"Don't do that. What I say to you, I don't intend to go farther."
Lenz was overflowing with happiness. He went backwards and forwards along the distant, and almost impassable road, just as if he had been passing from one room to another. He was often congratulated on his way by different people; and many said—"Don't think us impertinent, but we never believed that Annele would stay in this village. It was always said she would marry a landlord in Baden-Baden, or the Techniker. You may laugh, but you have fallen on your feet."
Lenz was not at all offended by being considered inferior to Annele; on the contrary, he was proud that she was so modest in her views as to choose him. When Lenz was sitting in the back parlour with Annele and her mother, and the old man sometimes came in, uttering some pious sentiment in his deep, sonorous voice, Lenz would say—"How grateful I ought to be to the good Lord, who has given me parents again! and such parents too! I seem to have come into the world a second time. I can scarcely realize that I am actually at home in the 'Lion' Inn, when I remember what I thought when, as a child, I saw the upper storey built, and plate glass in all the windows! I am sure the Palace at Carlsruhe cannot be finer, we children used to say to each other. And I was standing by when the Golden Lion itself was hung up. I little thought, then, that the day would come when I should be quite at home in such a palace! It is hard that my mother did not live to see it!"