Annele thought—"This must be another man! Can this be the former listless, indolent Lenz, who is now so bold, when face to face with death?"
Some words of kindness and appreciation trembled on her lips, but still she said nothing.
"Look! that confounded raven has bitten me," said Lenz, coming in with his hand bleeding, "and I cannot catch him. The creature is crazy from terror, for the mass of snow carried the bird along with it. There is a perfect pillar of snow in the chimney. It is ten o'clock. They are now leaving church down below in the village. When the last peal rang out, we were buried alive. That was our death-bell."
"I cannot die yet, I am still so young! and my child! I never knew, or anticipated, that I exposed myself to sudden death by settling in such a desert with a clockmaker."
"Your father is the sole cause of it," replied Lenz. "My parents were three times snowed up. The snow lay so thick outside, that for two or three days no one could leave the house; but we never were buried under it till now. Your father sold the wood; it is his doing; he let the wood be cut down over our heads."
"It is your fault; he offered to give you the wood."
"That is true enough."
"Oh, that I were safe out of this house, with my child!" lamented Annele.
"And you don't think of me at all?"
Annele pretended not to hear this speech, and exclaimed again, "Gracious powers! why must I die thus? what have I done?"