"Ha! ha!--capital! Pröbler and you!--a famous match, certainly! Have not I told you a hundred times that you would sink to his level? But he is better than you, for at least he has not brought a wife and family to beggary by his misconduct. To the deuce with such hypocrites and milksops! Go in harness with Pröbler, by all means!" cried Annele. And snatching the boy from his knee, she said passionately to the child--"Your father is a scamp and an idler, and expects us to put every morsel of bread into his mouth. It is a pity his mother is not still living, to feed him with bread and milk. Oh! how low I am sunk! But this I tell you, that so long as I live you shall not enter that manufactory. I would rather drown both myself and my children; then, perhaps, the Doctor's long-legged daughter, the young lady who is so learned in herbs, might marry you."
Lenz sat still, entirely confounded. His hair stood on end. At last he said--"Don't dare to call on my mother: leave her at peace in eternity."
"I can do that easily enough. I didn't want anything from her, and I never had anything from her."
"What?--have you thrown away the plant of Edelweiss that was hers?"
Annele opened a cupboard and showed him the plant. "I am thankful that you still have it," said Lenz, "for it will bring a blessing on us both."
"You seem pretty well out of your mind with your foolish superstitions," answered Annele. "Must I submit to that, too? There! fly away in the air, Edelweiss, along with the sacred inscription!"
She opened the window. A stormy wind was howling outside. "There, wind!" called she, "come! Carry it all off with you--the whole precious concern!" The writing and the plant were whirled away in a moment. The wind shrieked and whistled, and deposited the writing on the bleak hill.
"Annele, what have you done?" said Lenz with a groan.
"I am not superstitious like you; I am not so lost to common sense yet, as to place any faith in the benefit of a spell."
"It is no superstition. My mother only meant, that so long as my wife respected what came from her, it would bring us a blessing. But nothing is sacred in your eyes."
"Certainly, neither you nor your mother are."
"Enough!--not another word," cried Lenz in a hoarse voice, dashing down a chair. "Go with the boy out of the room. Not one word, or I shall go out of my senses.--Hush! some one is coming."