I ask no favors, only
to be paid back a portion of what is owed us."

The wedding presents were, indeed, rich and abundant, both in money and
in money's worth. Two days had to be given up to the marriage
festivities,--one for neighbors and relations, the second for more
distant acquaintances.

Pilgrim appeared at Lenz's house, on the wedding morning, with
well-sleeked hair, and a bunch of rosemary in his button-hole. "I bring
you no wedding present," he said.

"My mother's picture was present enough."

"That counts for nothing. I cannot do what I very well know custom
requires of me on such an occasion. The truth is, Lenz, I have made
myself a present on your wedding day. Do you see this paper? It makes
me like the Siegfried we used to read about. I am proof against all the
thrusts of fortune, with this hard shell about me."

"What is the paper?"

"It is an annuity. From my sixtieth year I begin to receive a hundred
florins annually, till which time I shall manage to scratch through.
When I am no longer able to live alone, you must fit up a little room
for me in your house,--a warm corner behind the stove, where I can play
with your grandchildren, and draw them pictures that to their eyes at
least will seem beautiful. I had to work hard to pay the first
instalment. My painting, stupidly enough, just gets me a living, with
not a copper over. So for the last year I have done without my
breakfast. The landlord noticed that I took my breakfast and dinner
together. In that way I saved up enough. By and by I shall get used to
doing without my dinner, and so on, by degrees, till I learn to do
without anything. It would be fine to put up the shutters one after
another, and with the last one, bid the world good night."

All the while he was talking, he had been helping Lenz on with his new
clothes,--spic and span new from head to foot. He thanked his friend
for making him, too, a family man; for, as he pleasantly explained, the
annuitants were members of the same household, only they did not keep
one another's birthdays. The omission proceeded from no ill will, but
simply from their not being acquainted. Pilgrim had all the statistics
of the matter at his tongue's end, and reeled them off for Lenz's
entertainment, for the sake of warding off any unnecessary excitement
or emotion on his friend's part.

When Lenz's toilet was made, came Petrovitsch, of his own free-will, to
escort him to the wedding. "You get no wedding