of rage, in a way she never
could have expected from him.

"You first wished to make me a pedlar, to sell watches," said he; "and
then a manufacturer, and now landlord of the Lion; if I am to become so
entirely different from my former self, what did you see in me to
induce you to marry me?"

Annele evaded any reply, but she said, bitterly:--"You are as soft as
butter to the whole world, but to me as hard as a pebble."

Lenz thought he was an experienced man, but Annele wished to make him
one. She neither said to him, nor admitted to herself, that she thought
herself the best fitted of the two to gain a livelihood, but she wept
and complained that she was of no use, and pitied herself on that
account. She said she only wished to act for the best; and what is it
she wishes? to work, to increase their means, but Lenz will not hear of
it.

Lenz told her that the garden was formerly very productive, she had
better cultivate it; but she had no taste for gardening:--"Every plant
grows just where it is placed, in peace and quiet, and requires no
pressing or driving forwards. Make haste! it is far too slow an affair
to watch what is growing and blossoming in time: three visits to the
kitchen, and three to the cellar, and I have gained more profit than I
would get from such a garden the whole summer; and an old woman, to
whom we pay a trifle, is quite good enough to work in the garden."

Now there was no end to the worry, and complaints, and lamentations,
that they must live so sparingly at home, Lenz was often in despair,
and sometimes so incensed, that he seemed to have become quite another
man. Then he was seized with a fit of repentance, and he took up a
different position, and said he was ashamed of all this discord before
his workmen and apprentices, and if Annele allowed him no peace, he was
resolved to send them away.

Annele laughed in his face. He proved to her, however, that he was in
earnest, for he dismissed the young men. So long as Lenz had preserved
his calm, unmoved nature, he possessed a kind of power over Annele, but
now, by constantly upbraiding him, and deploring his certain ruin,
Annele mastered him entirely; daily telling him he was good for
nothing, that he had sent away his workmen from idleness, and that his
good nature was only idleness in disguise.

Instead of laughing at such nonsense--for who had worked harder than
Lenz from his childhood, or who could be less disposed to boast of
it?--Len