"It is all ready now," said Lenz aloud, though he was alone in the room. "May you arrive safe!" He had been engaged in uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the work, as it was to be brought down into the valley in different pieces, and the large framework to be carried on a handbarrow by men, for there was no carriage road to Lenz's house. The two enemies, Pilgrim and Petrowitsch, met beside the waggon in the valley, beside which Lenz was standing, busily engaged in packing securely the different parts of the instrument.

On one side of the waggon Petrowitsch was saying--"I know the man who has purchased your musical clock, he is one of my best friends in Odessa, and a most worthy respectable person. If you had any sense, you would go too, and exhibit the instrument in Odessa; and then you would be sure to get at least seven new orders.

"I have already got a fresh one," said Lenz.

On the other side of the waggon. Pilgrim said--"Lenz, let us escort the 'Magic Flute' part of the way, and we can return in good time this evening."

"I should like it very much, for I feel sure I can't work any more today."

When the two friends were walking along behind the waggon, as they pa.s.sed the "Lion" Inn, Annele looked out of the window and called out "Good luck!"

The two friends thanked her.

In pa.s.sing the Doctor's house, they were even more gratified, for a maid came out, and running up to the waggon laid a wreath on the packing case.

"Who sends that?" asked Pilgrim, for Lenz was too surprised to speak.

"The young ladies," said the maid, returning to the house.

The two friends looked up at the window and bowed; no one, however, was to be seen, but when they had gone on a few steps, they heard the music of the "Magic Flute" played in the Doctor's house.

"What excellent people they are at the Doctor's!" said Pilgrim. "I never feel more perplexed than when I ask myself, Which of them is the best? The one I like the most is the old grandmother; the whole district should put up a pet.i.tion to the Almighty to preserve her life.

Your mother is now dead, and if the Doctor's wife were to die also, then the whole of the good old fashioned world would be dead--who still know how to observe good old household customs and ways. But her granddaughters are also excellent girls, and I don't doubt that Amanda will one day be as admirable as her grandmother."

Lenz said nothing, and the whole way to the town he was equally silent.

When, however, they had arrived there, and, the waggon having proceeded on its journey, the two friends were drinking their wine together, Lenz became more cheerful and talkative, and said he now felt as if life had revived within him.

"You really ought to marry," was again Pilgrim's admonition. "You have two cla.s.ses to choose from: either a thoroughly well educated person, like one of the Doctor's daughters--you could marry one of them if you chose, and I advise you to propose for Amanda. It is a pity that she can't sing like Bertha, but she has the best heart in the world, and will honour you if you honour her, and she will esteem your talents."

Lenz looked into the gla.s.s, and Pilgrim continued--

"Or else you must make up your mind to be satisfied with an honest farmer's daughter--I mean the bailiffs Kathrine. Franzl is right, she would jump over hedge and ditch after you; she would be sparing and frugal, and you would have fine healthy children--seven sons strong enough to uproot the old firs in the wood of the Landlord of the 'Lion;' and you would become a man of substance too; but you must not in that case expect your wife to understand anything of your vocation, or of the many ideas you have in your head. You have the choice, but choose you must. When you have made up your mind, let me know, and send me to the family. I feel quite proud already at the thoughts of my dignity as matchmaker; I will even put on a white neckcloth for the occasion if necessary. Can I give you a more striking proof of my wish to serve you?"

Lenz still continued to look at himself in the gla.s.s. Pilgrim had excluded Annele from the possibility of his choice. After a long pause Lenz said, "I should like to be in a large town just for once; I should so enjoy hearing music played by a whole orchestra, and to hear the same piece played five or six times over, then I feel I could arrange it quite differently: it always seems to me as if there were certain tones wanting, that I can never produce. They may praise me as much as they like, but I can tell you that the pieces I set have not the right sound, very far from it; I know it is so, and yet I can't alter the tone. There is something squeaking, and dry, and hard, in the instrument, like a dumb man who has been taught to speak; it is something like our speech, but yet it is different. If I could only succeed in getting this tone. I know what it should be--I hear it, but I can't produce it."

"Yes, yes, I feel just the same; I imagine that there is a style of drawing and colour that I must aim at. I am always in hopes that I shall seize the idea, and hold it fast. But I shall die in obscurity without ever having succeeded. This is doomed to be our fate--both yours and mine. Come, let us finish our wine and go home."

They went along together in a cheerful mood, this fine autumnal evening, singing all kinds of melodies together, and when they were tired of singing they whistled duets. Pilgrim took leave of Lenz at his own house. Lenz, however, seeing lights in the "Lion," and hearing the sound of loud voices, went in.

"I am so glad that you have come again to see us," said Annele, stretching out her hand to him. "I could not help thinking that you must feel it very solitary at home, now that your work is gone; almost as bad as the day you lost your poor mother."

"Oh! not quite so bad as that, though something of the same kind; but, Annele, people may praise my musical clock as much as they like, but I know it should be very different. I don't wish to praise myself, but this I will say, that I understand how to listen to music, and really to understand that, is no small merit."

Annele looked at him in surprise, and thought: "To know how to listen to music; what knowledge does that require? any one can do that who has ears, if they do not put cotton into them." She, however, had a suspicion that Lenz meant something more; she knew well, from long experience, that people often begin with some very opposite subject when they have something to communicate which they are full of; she therefore cast a sympathising glance at Lenz, saying, "Yes, indeed; it is no small merit."

"You understand then what I mean?" cried Lenz with enthusiasm.

"Yes; but I don't exactly know how to express it."

"That is precisely my case. When I come to this point I get puzzled. I never learned the science of music, I can neither play on the violin nor on the piano; but when I hear the notes, I seem to know at once what the composer meant. I cannot express music, but I can listen to it."

"That is a capital expression," said Annele joyfully. "I shall never forget that phrase so long as I live; to express music and to listen to it are two different things; it is easy to learn from you, for though I feel just so myself, I could not explain it as you do."

Lenz drank in the good wine, the good words, and the good looks of Annele at the same time, and then continued, "Mozart especially I seem to hear without losing a note, and I think I hear him correctly. Oh! if I could only have given him my hand once while he was alive! but I think I should have died of grief when he died, if he had lived in my day; but I should like to serve him even now that he is in Heaven; and I often think it is better that I can't play on any instrument, for I should never have learned to express music as I can feel it. Hearing is a gift of nature, for which I have to thank G.o.d. My grandfather, too, had great knowledge of music. If I had not played in harmony, with my sense of hearing and feeling, it would certainly have grated distractingly on my nerves."

"It is just the same with me," interrupted Annele. "I like to listen to music, but I have no skill; and besides, when there is so much to do in the house I have no time to myself, so there is no chance of my improving. I have entirely given up the piano; my father is very angry with me for it, for he spared no money, and made all his children learn music, but I think if you can't do a thing really well it is better to let it alone altogether; and then for people like myself, who know how to hear music though not to speak it, we have you and the instruments you make. If I were master in this house, I would buy your best organ from you, and not let any more go to Russia: I would have it in the public room, where it would amuse all the guests, and you would in this way receive plenty of orders. Since I was up at your house, no matter where I go, I have always ringing in my ears that pretty melody with the bells, from the 'Magic Flute.'"

A pretty melody sounded in Lenz's ears also. He tried to explain to Annele that a person who had no true feeling for music, might indeed place the pegs in the instrument in the same order in which the notes were written; but that was not all; no, not even when attending to change of time as it was marked: where feeling does not exist, the instrument will never be anything better than a barrel-organ.

A person playing of his own accord makes the Piano slower and the Forte quicker; and a similar effect must be obtained by the mechanism of the instrument, but those shades in the time must be delicately managed.

Though the _forte_ should be well marked, the instrument having so much stress on it already, in the _fortissimo_ a reinforcement of power should be given.

Annele listened to him with a very intelligent face, and at last said: "I am very much obliged to you for giving me all these details. If some people knew that you had been telling me all this, they might be jealous."

At these words Lenz pa.s.sed his hands across his eyes, and said: "Annele, may I venture to ask you a question?"

"Yes, I would tell you anything."

"Don't take it amiss; but is it true that you are as good as betrothed to the Techniker?"

"Thank you for asking me that in a straightforward way. There, you have my hand as a pledge that there is not a word of truth in it;--there is nothing between us."

Lenz held her hand fast, and said: "May I ask you one thing more?"

"Ask whatever you choose, you shall have an honest answer."

"Tell me why your manner is so different to me when Pilgrim is present?

have you and he had any quarrel?"

"May this be poison that I am drinking if I don't tell you the truth,"

said Annele, taking up Lenz's gla.s.s and sipping out of it; though Lenz a.s.sured her that there was no need of such strong a.s.severations--he could not bear them.

She continued: "If all men were like you, no a.s.severations would be necessary. Pilgrim and I are constantly teasing and tormenting each other, but he does not know me thoroughly; and when you are here I cannot bear all these silly jokes, and mountebank ways: but now you must promise me one thing: if there is anything you want to know about me, ask no one but myself; give me your hand on it."

They clasped each other's hands, and Annele continued in a sorrowful tone: "I am the daughter of the landlord of an inn; I am not so well off as most girls: they are not obliged to receive any one who chooses to come in, and to speak to them and answer them; so I often say sharp things, but I am not always what I appear--I may tell you that, and I do tell it to you."

"I never should have thought that; I never could have believed that any sorrowful thought had ever crossed your mind; I always supposed that all day long you were as merry as a bird."

"Yes, indeed, I would much rather be merry," answered Annele, her face quickly changing; "I don't like sad music either. How pretty and gay that air was from the 'Magic Flute'! it almost made one dance."

The conversation now turned again on the subject of music, and the instrument that had today left the village. Lenz liked to talk about it, and mentioned his having giving it a convoy part of the way. He would gladly have called out to all packers, waggoners, and sailors--"Be cautious with it! it is a pity you can't hear what it contains."

Never till this evening had Lenz been the last remaining guest in the inn; but he felt no inclination to rise and go home: the large clock in the room struck loudly, and in a warning tone, its weights rolling down angrily, but Lenz did not hear them. The Landlord walked up and down the room with creaking boots, but Lenz took no notice of them. It had never yet occurred that any one should act as if the Landlord was not in the room. He struck his repeater loudly, but Lenz did not appear to notice it; at last--the Landlord is not a man to stand on ceremony with any one--he spoke out: "Lenz, if you choose to stay here all night, I will have a room prepared for you."

Lenz started, and gave Annele his hand; he would gladly have done the same to the Landlord, but that is a liberty no man ventures to take, unless that potentate first offers his. Lenz walked home in silence, and buried in thought.