Instead of laughing at such absurd charges, Lenz brooded over them for days together, as he sat at his work, and allowed them to assume colossal proportions, long after they had faded from Annele's recollection. Her isolated life began to seem to her like a rainy Sunday in summer, when she had put on her holiday clothes, in the reasonable expectation of enjoying herself, and having a merry time with her friends, and found, instead, the road impassable, and herself a prisoner at home. It shall not be so, I will not live in this way, was the constant cry in her heart. She grew suspicious and irritable, taking offence at every trifle, yet never confessed to her husband or herself the true cause of her discontent. Lenz was driven to seek comfort out of his own home. The fact of his going abroad did not vex Annele so much as the manner of his doing it. He hung about so long before leaving the house, and, after having gone, would come back two and three times, as if he had forgotten something. He could not bear to go away with feelings in his heart which made him almost a stranger to himself. He hoped Annele would try to detain him, or would at least speak a kind word to restore him to himself. In his mother's lifetime, he never started on a long journey without her giving him a piece of bread from the cupboard to save him from temptation, as she said, while a better safeguard than any loaf was the kind word spoken from her heart. Now he had to go as if neither the house nor himself were his own. Therefore it was that he trifled away so much time without being able to tell what he wanted. There is no virtue in a thing asked for; the true blessing lies only in a free gift, voluntarily--almost unconsciously--offered and received. Long before the working hours were over, Lenz would often be sitting at Pilgrim's, and Annele with her parents. The whole house seemed out of joint. Lenz said not a word to Pilgrim of the grief that was inwardly consuming him, while Annele poured her complaints into unsympathizing ears. Her parents appeared entirely absorbed in their own affairs. Lenz spent much time, too, at Faller's, where he was almost happier than at Pilgrim's. The grateful couple greeted him with joy and respect, and honored him like the Lenz of former days. At home he had long ceased to be anybody.