like a child again," replied Lenz. Petrovitsch shook his
head and warned him not to trust to such sudden conversion. If ever
they got out he must oblige Annele to sue daily and hourly for his
love. Lenz disputed the matter with his uncle, who had never known what
it was to be married; there was an angel in Annele, he said, that might
well raise a man to a heaven on earth; the trouble had been that, in
her frenzy, she had debased the good in her to the level of the evil.

Petrovitsch only shook his head; he was evidently not convinced.

Annele and the child awoke simultaneously with a cry of terror: "The
roof is breaking in!" screamed Annele. "Where are you, Lenz? Keep by
me; let us die together! put the child in my arms."

When she was quieted, they all went together into the sitting-room.
Lenz pounded up Cousin Ernestine's coffee-beans, and they drank their
coffee by the light of the ghastly blue flame. The clocks struck.
Annele said she should stop counting the strokes, and asking whether it
was night or day; they were already in eternity. If the last cruel step
were only over!--She had hoped for some answer to relieve her fears,
her certainty of death; but none came.

They sat for a long while in silence; words were useless. Lenz ventured
at last to take advantage of the pleasant terms on which he and his
uncle now stood, to ask why he had manifested such cruel reserve
towards him.

"Because I hated the man whose dressing-gown I now am wearing; yes,
hated him. He treated me cruelly in my youth, and fixed the nickname of
goatherd on me. Constant pressure leaves its mark on the hard wood, why
not on a human heart? The thought that my only brother had rejected and
banished me was always wearing into my soul. I came home in the hope of
laying down the burden of hate which I had so long carried about the
world. I can truly say, I hated him to his death. Why did he die before
the word of reconciliation was spoken between us? On the long journey
home I rejoiced at the prospect of having a brother again, and I found
none. In the bottom of my heart I did not hate him, or why should I
have come home? Never again in this world shall I hear the name of
brother; soon elsewhere--"

"Uncle," said Annele, "at the very moment we heard Bubby scratching at
the door Lenz was telling me how his father, when he was once snowed up
here, though not buried as we are, said that if he should have to die
then, he should leave no enemy beh