ath. 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, God 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 mass 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
anticipated, 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.

"And you don't think of me at all?"