"I knew nothing, absolutely nothing; but I did know what prudence meant, and so leave me in peace."
"Will you not go to your mother? she is in such bitter grief."
"What good could I do? to set her off again in floods of tears at sight of me? Why should I go down to be stared at, and pitied by all the people? Am I to hear the Doctor's fine daughters strumming at their music, and laughing as I pass by? I am quite contented to stay up here by myself; I don't wish to see anybody."
"No doubt it is all for the best," said Lenz, kindly; "perhaps you will in future be both better and happier here alone with me. The time may return, indeed it must surely return, to what it once was, when you said: 'Up here we are in Paradise, and we will let the world below drive and rush about here and there, as they please; we can be happy without that.' We once were happy, and we shall be so again; if you are only kind to me, I can do as much work as three men, and you need have no regret on my account, for I did not marry you for your money."
"Nor did I marry you for yours; indeed, I don't think it would have been worth while; if I had wanted to be rich, I might have got many a wealthy husband."
"We have been too long together to talk of the marriages we might have made," said Lenz, interrupting her; "let us go to dinner."
After dinner, Lenz mentioned the affair about the wood, and Annele said, "Do you know what will be the result?"
"What?"
"Nothing, but that you will be obliged to pay the woodcutters for their day's work."
"We shall see about that," said Lenz, and went again in the afternoon to the Doctor's, whom he had not found at home in the morning. On his way there, he was joined by a very sorrowful companion. Faller came up to him as pale as death, and exclaiming: "Oh! it is dreadful, too dreadful! a flash of forked lightning in a calm bright sky!"