Faller and his wife lived harmoniously together, each thoroughly convinced that the other was the most admirable being in the world. If they only could be once out of debt, and have a little money over, they would astonish the world. As it was, they toiled and scraped, and were always cheerful. Faller enlivened himself and his wife, as he sat at work over the machinery of his big clocks,--for he was not a sufficiently skilful workman to undertake the more delicate timepieces,--with tales of his barrack life, and the different plays he and his comrades enacted in varied and gorgeous costumes. Mrs. Faller proved a most gracious public. In her loving eyes her husband was actually clothed with the royal mantles, the crowns, and the diamonds he so vividly described. How dismal seemed Lenz's own life in comparison! Ever darker and darker grew the shadows in his soul. His every experience was changed into bitterness and sorrow. When he was present, as he sometimes could not help being, at the meetings and rehearsals of the Liederkranz, and sang the songs of love, of longing, of blissful rapture, his heart within him cried: Is this true? is it possible? were any human beings ever so happy, so blessed? Yet you yourself were so once. He called for soberer, sadder songs, and startled his comrades by the pathos of his voice, which sounded like the wail of a breaking heart. Whereas in former days he could never get singing enough, now he soon tired of it, and wanted to stop, or took offence at a word, and the next moment was as hasty in begging his comrade's forgiveness, when there was nothing to forgive. He recovered his self-possession at times, and, trying to believe that the sole cause of his discontent was want of industry, would labor diligently at his old tasks; but no blessing crowned his toil. The day often found him undoing what he had spent half the night in completing. His hand was unsteady. Even his father's file, which had been repointed, and whose touch had never failed to quiet him, lost its efficacy. The machinery which had required a whole day to make and put together he would pull to pieces in a fit of discontent, only to find that it had been good work, perfectly adjusted, but seeming discordant because of the discord within him.