"That fellow, Lenz, has good friends in his need. Pooh! who knows if they would have been as zealous, if they had been rich! ... Pilgrim's earnestness did, however, seem genuine: tears were in his eyes; he controlled his own indignation, and submitted to all my impertinence, for the sake of his friend; but who can tell if this was not all a trick on his part? No, no, there still are true friends in the world."

The organ vibrated from afar, and the singing of the congregation rose in the air, then all was still: the Pastor was, no doubt, preaching his sermon: one solitary human voice cannot be heard at such a distance.

Petrowitsch sat in his chair with clasped hands, and it seemed as if some one was preaching to him, for suddenly he started up, and said aloud:--"It is a very good thing to show others that you have a will of your own; but it is also pleasant to be esteemed. After all, it is not worth much; but still, to take men by surprise, and to make them say, 'Well, we never could have believed this.' Yes, yes, that would be pleasant enough."

For many years Petrowitsch had not dressed himself so rapidly as today--usually his dressing, like everything he did, was a work of time, on which he could always spend a good hour--today he was ready in a few minutes. He put on his fur cloak--and he had the finest fur in the country; Petrowitsch had not been so long in Russia for nothing.

His old housekeeper, who had seen him so short a time before in his dressing gown, looked at him in amazement, but she never ventured to address him, unless he first spoke to her. Petrowitsch, stepping out stoutly and carrying his goldheaded stick, with its strong sharp point, went through the village, and then proceeded up the hill. No human being was on the pathway, not a single soul looked out of the window--so there was no one to wonder why the old man had left his own house in such dreadful weather, and at so unusual an hour. Buble, however, barked loud enough to supply this deficiency, as if saying, "My master is going to a house--to a house--where no one would believe he was really going. I could not have believed it myself." Buble barked this out to a certain crow, who was perched contemplatively on a hedge, gazing, in deep thought, at the melting snow; Buble soon barked for his own behoof only, and the deeper the snow became, the higher Buble jumped, making various unnecessary scurries on his own account, up the hill and down again, and then he looked at his master, as if to say, "No living creature understands you and me, except ourselves--we know each other pretty well."

"I give up my peace for ever if I do it," said Petrowitsch to himself; "but if I don't do it, I shall have no peace either, and so it is better to earn some grat.i.tude into the bargain; and he certainly is a good, single hearted, honest man, just like his father. Yes, yes!"

These were Petrowitsch's reflections. He arrived in front of Lenz's house. The door was locked; Buble had trotted on before him, and was standing on the door step, when at the same instant--Petrowitsch had actually the latch of the door in his hand--he sank to the ground. He was lying under a ma.s.s of snow.

"This is the result of taking charge of other people's affairs," was his first thought as he fell. Soon he no longer had the power to think.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

BURIED ALIVE.

"Get a light, Lenz; get a light! Let us at least see our danger, whatever it may be. You sit there in the dark, groaning and lamenting: why are you shedding tears on my hand? What do you mean? Let go my hand that I may rise and strike a light."

"Annele, stay where you are!" Lenz could scarcely speak in his agitation. "Annele, I had resolved to put an end to myself, and came to take a last look at you; but now we are buried alive, and our child with us."

"If any act of energy on your part had been required to cause this misfortune, it never would have happened; it must have come of its own accord."

Still, still, these bitter, irritating words--still the same sharp, cutting tone. Lenz could scarcely draw breath.

"I must rise--I will rise," continued Annele. "I am not like you, letting my arms hang idly by my side. Come good, or come evil, just as it may chance, I am resolved to see what can be done. You would prefer waiting, I suppose, till you are dug out, or the snow at last melted?

With me it is very different."

"Stay where you are, I will strike a light," answered Lenz, and went into the next room, but before he could light a candle, Annele was standing beside him. She had her child in her arms. He went to the granary, but quickly returned, saying, with horror, that the roof had given way under the weight of the snow; "And not snow alone," continued he; "large trunks of trees have rolled down on the house, along with the snow. That must have been the cause of the dreadful crashes we heard."

"What care I for that? The point now is to help ourselves, and to find some rescue."

Annele ran from window to window, and from door to door. "It cannot be!

such a misfortune is impossible!" Not till she saw that nothing yielded to her frantic efforts, everything being as immovable as mason work, did Annele break out into loud lamentations, and place the child on a table. Lenz took the little girl in his arms, and begged Annele to be patient, she having now sunk down in silence. "The cold hand of death lies on our house," said he, "and it is no use struggling against fate."

"Where is my boy?" said she, suddenly starting up. "Have you hid him anywhere?"

"No; he is not here."

"G.o.d be praised! Then we are not all lost; one of us at least is safe."

"I will tell you fairly that I sent away the boy on purpose. I did not wish him to see me murder myself. Now it has turned out differently.

G.o.d will demand our souls together. But this poor infant! it is hard it should die with its sinful parents."

"I have committed no sin; I have nothing to reproach myself with."

"Well! continue to think so, if you can. Do you not know that you murdered me, poisoning my heart, dishonouring me in my own eyes, striving to trample upon me, and depriving me of all moral courage?"

"A husband who can submit to such things deserves no better fate."

"Annele, for G.o.d's sake remember that in the course of an hour, we shall probably stand before another Judge! Search your conscience!"

"I don't want to hear your sermons; preach to yourself."

She went into the kitchen, and tried to light a fire, but she uttered a cry of distress. When Lenz went to her, he saw her eyes fixed in horror on the hearthstone, where rats and mice were sitting staring at her, and a raven was flying about in the kitchen, dashing first against plates, and then against pans, making them fall on the floor with a crash.

"Kill them, kill them!" screamed Annele, hurrying away.

Lenz soon got rid of the rats and mice, but he could not succeed in getting hold of the raven, without shattering all the crockery on the kitchen shelves. The light of the lamp drove the creature distracted, and without light it was impossible to find it. Lenz returned to the sitting room, and said, "I have loaded pistols here, so I could shoot the raven, but I dare not risk it, for the vibration from the shot might hurry on the final destruction of the house. So I will at least make this room safe."

He dragged a heavy press into the middle of the room, under the main cross beam, placing a smaller one on the top, which he crammed full of linen, and pushed it so tight against the ceiling, that it could support a great pressure.

"Now we will bring in here whatever food we have in the house." This he also completed quickly and surely.

Annele looked at him in astonishment. She could not stir from the spot; she felt as if suddenly paralysed.

Lenz then brought out his prayer-book, and Annele's, and opened them both at the same place--"Preparation for death." He placed the one before Annele, and began to read the other himself; but presently he looked up, and said, "You are right not to attempt to read this, for there is nothing here to suit us. Never before was there such a case: two human beings vowed to live in peace and unity, and mutually to enhance the value of life, but they signally failed, and went different ways, and yet now they are imprisoned together on the threshold of death. They could not live together, but they must die together. Hush!"

said he, suddenly; "don't you hear a faint cry? It seems to me that I hear groans."

"I hear nothing."

"We can't light a fire," continued Lenz; "the chimney is choked up, so we should be stifled. But, G.o.d be praised! here is the spirit lamp that my poor mother bought. Yes, mother," said he, looking up at her picture, "even in death you help us. Light it, Annele; but be very sparing of the spirit. Who knows how long we must stay here?"

Annele was transfixed with amazement at Lenz's expressions and gestures. The words were often on her lips--"Are you the same Lenz who was always so supine and helpless?" But she did not give utterance to them; she was like a person in a trance, who would fain speak, but cannot. She could not articulate a syllable.

After she had swallowed a cupful of hot milk, however, Annele said: "If the rats and mice come in here, what is to be done?"

"Then we will kill them here too, and I will throw them out into the snow, that their putrid carcases may not taint the air. I will do the same to those in the kitchen."

Annele thought--"This must be another man! Can this be the former listless, indolent Lenz, who is now so bold, when face to face with death?"

Some words of kindness and appreciation trembled on her lips, but still she said nothing.

"Look! that confounded raven has bitten me," said Lenz, coming in with his hand bleeding, "and I cannot catch him. The creature is crazy from terror, for the ma.s.s of snow carried the bird along with it. There is a perfect pillar of snow in the chimney. It is ten o'clock. They are now leaving church down below in the village. When the last peal rang out, we were buried alive. That was our death-bell."

"I cannot die yet, I am still so young! and my child! I never knew, or antic.i.p.ated, that I exposed myself to sudden death by settling in such a desert with a clockmaker."

"Your father is the sole cause of it," replied Lenz. "My parents were three times snowed up. The snow lay so thick outside, that for two or three days no one could leave the house; but we never were buried under it till now. Your father sold the wood; it is his doing; he let the wood be cut down over our heads."

"It is your fault; he offered to give you the wood."

"That is true enough."

"Oh, that I were safe out of this house, with my child!" lamented Annele.