hed to make me the
medium to propose this scheme; but I refused at once. I never will do
anything for any one--never! I persuade no one to any course of action,
nor can any one persuade me. Each one must live for himself; and this
is the principal point I wish to impress upon you--that I never will
give away one single kreuzer. I would rather throw my money into the
sea. Now I have talked long enough. I am quite tired and overheated."

"How did the water taste from the well by the church, for which you had
longed so much?" asked the Doctor.

"Bad, very bad--so cold and hard that I could not drink it."

The Doctor laid hold of this admission to endeavour to show Petrowitsch
that the world, like the water in the well, had neither changed nor
become worse; but that his stomach was no longer young, and his eyes
and thoughts also had grown older. He said to Petrowitsch that it was
but natural, that so much in contact with the world and with strangers,
he should have become inured to all weathers, and indifferent to harsh
words; but that it was also indispensable for the establishment of
domestic industry and frugality, that some men should stay at home and
work assiduously; and especially those who made musical works, ought to
have a degree of acuteness of perception amounting to sensitiveness: at
the same time he showed him that he was, in reality, himself as
soft-hearted as his nephew.

He placed before him, in most emphatic language, that it was his duty
to help Lenz; but Petrowitsch was once more the hard, inflexible, old
man: and concluded by these words:--"I stick to what I said. I meddle
with no man, and wish no man to meddle with me. I will do nothing. Not
another word, Doctor, for I cannot stand it."

And so it ended. As a messenger now came from Ibrahim, Petrowitsch left
the house with the Doctor. When they parted the Doctor went on to the
Morgenhalde. He was obliged to draw his cloak round him, for there was
a strong, but singularly soft wind blowing.

CHAPTER XXXI.
ANNELE THAWS ALSO, BUT FREEZES AGAIN.

While Lenz was journeying through the country in the deepest
inward grief, Annele was alone at home with her thoughts. She was
alone,--sadly alone,--for Lenz had not even left her a kind farewell,
to keep her company. He had quitted her in silence, and with closed
lips. "Pooh! a couple of kind words will soon turn him," thought Annele
to herself; and ye