parson,"
said Annele, thinking, as she left the room, There is a good
home-thrust for you. We are all to listen to you; but as for what any
of us may say, that is of no consequence whatever.

Not to be revenged on his wife, but from sheer forgetfulness, Lenz
often at table, after she had been telling some long story, would
suddenly say, as if just waking up: "I beg your pardon; I have not
heard a word you have been saying, my head is so full of that beautiful
melody! If I could only make it sound as I hear it! That change to the
minor key is wonderful."

Annele smiled, but never forgave the slight he thus put upon her.

The pendulums swung more and more determinedly each in its own
direction.

Formerly, when Lenz returned home from the foundry, or the locksmith's,
or from any excursion, his mother always sat by him while he ate, and
listened with delight to all he had to tell. The glass of beer he had
drunk abroad she relished again at home; the kindly greetings he had
received awoke fresh gratitude in her loving heart. Every incident he
related was of importance, for it had happened to him. But now, when he
came home, Annele had no time to sit by him; or if she did, and he
began to relate his experiences, she would say: "What is all that to
me? I don't care a pin about it. People may live as they like, for
aught I care. They give me none of their happiness, and their
unhappiness I don't want. You and they get on finely together; they
have only to wind you up, and you play to everybody, like one of your
musical clocks."

Lenz laughed, remembering that Pilgrim had once called him an eight-day
clock, because he was always wound up fresh on Sundays. Through the
week he gave himself no rest, and therefore welcomed all the more
gladly the Sunday holiday. When the sun shone bright, he often
exclaimed: "Thank God, thousands and thousands of human beings are
rejoicing at this beautiful Sunday!"

"You act as if you were the Lord God himself, and had the whole world
to look after," was Annele's response, which taught him to keep such
thoughts henceforth to himself. If he wanted Annele to go with him of a
Sunday to a meeting of the various musical societies in a neighboring
village, or simply to join Faller and his wife in a walk up the valley,
the answer always was: "You are at liberty, of course, to go where you
will. It makes no difference to a man what company he keeps; but I
shall not go with you. I rank myself too hi