ee times as much as you, with all your
worry about your pegs and wheels."

"And do you really think you can force me to take such a step?"

"You will thank me one day for insisting on it; it is not easy to force
you to give up your old ways, and to leave this house."

"I am leaving it now, this minute," said Lenz in a low voice; and,
hastily drawing on his coat, he left the house.

Annele ran after him a few steps.

"Where are you going to, Lenz?"

He made no answer, but proceeded to climb the hill.

When he reached the crest of the hill, he looked round once. There lay
his paternal house; no longer sheltered by trees, it looked bleak and
naked, and he felt as if his whole life had been also laid bare. He
turned again, and rushed on further. His idea was to go far, far away,
and when he returned he might be different, and the world also. He
plodded on further and further, and yet an irresistible impulse urged
him to turn back. At last he sat down on the stump of a tree, and
covered his face with both his hands. It was a still, mild, autumnal
afternoon, the sun had kindly intentions towards the earth, and more
especially to the Morgenhalde; he still shed warm rays on the felled
trees which he had shone on, and renovated, for so many long years. The
magpies were chattering fluently on the chesnut trees below, and the
woodpecker sometimes put in his word. All was night and death within
Lenz's soul. A child suddenly said: "Man! come, and help me with this."

Lenz rose and helped Faller's eldest little girl, who had been
collecting chips, to place her basket on her shoulder. The child
started when she recognized Lenz, and ran down the hill. Lenz gazed
long after her.

It was quite night when he came home. He did not say a word, and sat
for more than an hour looking down fixedly. He then glanced up at his
tools hanging on the wall, with a singular, earnest expression, as if
he were trying to remember what they were, and what purpose they were
meant to serve.

The child in the next room began to cry; Annele went to it, and the
only way she could pacify it was by singing.

A mother will sing for the sake of her child, even if her heart is
crushed by a burden of sorrow. Lenz then rose and went into the next
room, and said:--

"Annele, I was on the point of leaving the country for ever--yes, you
may laugh: I knew that you would laugh."

"I am not laughing; it already occurred to me, that perhaps it would be
a goo