urrah,
hurrah! that is jolly to have you here too," cried a voice in greeting;
and there at a table, on which stood a great flagon of beer, sat
Proebler with two of his associates. One of his pot companions was the
blind musician from Fuchsberg, whose instrument Lenz was in the habit
of putting in order every year. An expression of embarrassment and
mortification overspread the blind man's face at the sound of Lenz's
voice, but he assumed a braggadocio air, and, flourishing his glass
above his head, cried out, "Come, Lenz, pledge me out of my glass!"
Lenz courteously declined. Old Proebler tried to get up and advance to
meet him, but his legs soon admonished him that he was safer sitting,
and he contented himself with calling out: "Take a seat with us, Lenz,
and let the bankrupt world without snow itself away as it will. There
is no good left in it. Here we will sit till the day of judgment. I
want nothing more; when I have spent my last farthing I shall sell my
coat for drink, and then lay me down in the snow and save you the cost
of burying me. Here you have a proof, comrades, of what a worthless
world it is, that can thus bring its best and noblest to ruin. Have a
drink, Lenz! That is well. Look at him, the best and bravest fellow in
all the world; and how has the world used him? When his mother died,
and the whole town was talking of nothing but Lenz's marriage,--why,
the sparrows could not be madder after a sack of corn than the girls
were for Lenz."

"Enough of that," interposed Lenz.

"No, no; you need not be ashamed to hear the truth. The doctor's
daughters, and the paper-miller's only daughter, who was so rich and
handsome and married Baron Thingummy,--every one of them would have
jumped at him. The paper-miller said to me the day after the betrothal:
'Lenz of the Morgenhalde might have had my daughter and welcome.' And
now--Peace, Lenz; I have done--only the Lord or the Devil knows who
will get the upperhand. Look at that man! His own father-in-law has
robbed him, has sold the very hair off his head, and left his house
bare in the middle of winter. I was honest too once, Lenz; but I have
had enough of it, and you will see the folly of it presently. Go about
the world, if you are in want, and ask of the good and charitable. Take
a pinch; take a pinch! their snuff-boxes are open to you, and that is
all. Take a pinch!" Proebler pressed his snuff-box upon him and laughed
immoderately.

Lenz shuddered at hearin