and mice were soon disposed of, but the raven it would have
been impossible to catch without breaking every article of crockery in
the kitchen. The lamp made the bird frantic, and without a light
it was impossible to find him. "I might shoot the raven with my pistol
which I have here, ready loaded," he said, returning to Annele in the
sitting-room; "but the jar would hasten the fall of the house. The best
thing I can do is to make this room safe."

He drew a heavy press into the middle of the room directly under the
main beam, piled a smaller one above it, and filled in the space so
tightly with clothes as to prop up the roof against a considerable
pressure from without.

"We must bring all the eatables we have in here." That too he did
quickly and handily, while Annele sat like one paralyzed, and could
only look on in wonder.

Lenz brought his own prayer-book and Annele's, opened them both at the
same place,--the preparation for death,--and laying his wife's open
before her, began to read aloud. Seeing she did not follow him, he
looked up presently and said: "You are right not to read; there is
nothing there for us. Never were any two like us, who should have lived
together in peace, each doubling the other's life; but who instead of
that pulled away from each other, and are now both imprisoned at the
gates of death, and must die together, since they could not live
together. Hark! Do you not hear cries? I thought there was a growling
sound."

"I hear nothing."

"We cannot light a fire," continued Lenz; "for there is no way for the
smoke to escape, and we should be stifled. Thank God, there is the
spirit-lamp that my mother bought. You help even in death, mother," he
said, looking up at the picture. "Light it, Annele; only economize the
spirit; we cannot tell how long we shall have to make it last."

Annele watched his movements in blank amazement. She was often tempted
to ask whether this were really that Lenz who had been so incapable of
helping himself. But no words came from her stiffened lips. She was
like a person in a deathly trance who tries to speak and cannot.

Her first swallow of warm milk revived her. "What if the mice should
come in here?" was her first question.

"I will kill them here too, and bury them in the snow to get rid of the
stench. By the way, I must bury those I killed in the kitchen."

Again Annele looked at him in amazement. Was this man, so bold in the
face of death, the old, sens