tead of active co-operation. Every one insisted on keeping to his
old ways, thinking he understood best his own interests, and unwilling
to risk them for the sake of the common good.

Lenz came home discouraged, only to be received by his wife with
reproaches: "For Heaven's sake, stop setting up ninepins for other men
to knock down. Let others alone; they don't trouble themselves about
you. You would like to oil everybody's doors, that they should not
creak, though no one's teeth are set on edge by them but your own."

Lenz smiled at his wife's sharp comparisons. No sooner had he
relinquished his plan for the good of his fellow-workmen than she began
urging him to set up a manufactory in company with her father. He could
go abroad a year, if necessary, she said, and she would spend the time
with her parents. Lenz maintained that he was not suited for such an
undertaking, and, moreover, would certainly not travel now that he was
a married man, after staying at home through his bachelor life. Annele
took small satisfaction in his assurances that she might set her mind
quite at rest as to the future, as he should never fail to make a
comfortable living, in which assurances he was fully borne out by
Pilgrim. Pilgrim, therefore, she regarded as the chief obstacle in
Lenz's path to fortune,--a man who had never accomplished anything
himself, and never would; and she used all the means in her power,
though without success, to breed discord between the two friends.

Annele carried a perfect ledger in her head, so constantly was she
revolving figures and plans. Knowing that Lenz had been Faller's
security for the purchase of his house, she now teased him to withdraw
his name. So strongly did she insist, that he was fairly obliged to
consent, and had entered Faller's house for the purpose of announcing
his determination, when he was met by his old comrade with a face half
rueful and half laughing, and told of the arrival of a second pair of
twins. "The little creatures know I am mad on the subject of children,
and so come to me in couples." Of course Lenz could not increase the
young father's anxieties by withdrawing his security at such a time,
and was obliged to return an evasive answer to his wife's inquiries as
to the result of his visit.

On the night before the marriage of the engineer with the doctor's
daughter Annele gave birth to a son. As Lenz was standing by her
bedside, full of his new happiness, she said: "Lenz, p