Lenz hid his face with his hands, and sat thus half the night; he tried to reflect on his position, and why, in addition to the wreck of his fortune, there should also be the wreck of his happiness—it was, indeed, horrible! He could not discover the cause, though he thought over all that had occurred from his wedding day to the present time:—"I cannot find it out," cried he; "if a voice from Heaven would only tell me!"—but no voice came from Heaven, all was still and silent in the house; the clocks alone continued to tick together. Lenz looked long out at the window.
The night was calm; nothing stirred, but snow laden clouds were hurrying along, high up in the sky.
Far off yonder on the hill, a light is burning at the blacksmith's house; it burned the whole night the blacksmith died today.
"Why did he die instead of me? I would so gladly have died." Life and death chased each other in wild confusion through Lenz's soul; the living seemed to him no longer to live, nor the dead to die—the whole of life is only one long calamity—no bird ever sung, no man ever uplifted his voice in melody.
Lenz's forehead fell on the window sill, he started up in terror, and to escape such horrible waking dreams, he sought repose and forgetfulness in sleep.
Annele had been long asleep: he gazed intently at her. If he could only read her dreams; if he could only succour her—her and himself too.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A BEGGAR, AND MONEY SAVED.
We are in a country where no thaw comes for many months when once the frost fairly sets in. The Morgenhalde is the only exception to this; there the sun usually shone with such power, that there were drops from the roof, while elsewhere heavy icicles were suspended motionless from the houses. This winter, however, the sun in the sky seemed less benign towards the Morgenhalde than in old times. There was no sign of any thaw outside the house nor inside. It was not only colder than it had ever been before—this was no doubt caused by the wood on the side of the hill being cut down; the trunks were all lying about, only waiting for the spring floods to be floated down into the valley—but those who lived in the Morgenhalde seemed frozen also. Annele seemed no longer able to wake up to life and activity; there seemed something congealed within her, which a warm breath could scarcely have thawed, and that warm breath never came. She who had lived so long with her parents at home, now when they had left the place, felt their loss sadly. She said nothing to any one, but a worm gnawed at her heart, in the thought that she was the only poor one of the family. She could do nothing for her parents, nor assist in supporting them; indeed—who knows?—perhaps she must one day go begging to her own sisters, and entreat of them to give the cast off clothes of their children to hers.