The moon shone bright in the sky--the flowers emitted their fragrance for themselves alone--and the stars gazed down on them. All was still around, save here and there, when, in passing a house, a clock was heard to strike. CHAPTER VI. THE WORLD STEPS IN. "Good morning, Lenz!--so you slept well?--you are still like a child, who sleeps sound after crying till he is worn out," said Faller, in his deep hollow bass voice, next morning. And Lenz replied--"Ah, my friend! to wake, and wake again, and to remember the events of yesterday, is only fresh misery! But I must take courage, I will first of all prepare the security for you: take it to the mayor before he rides out, and remember me to him. By the bye, it has just occurred to me that I dreamt of him. Go to Pilgrim, too, if you have time, and tell him I am waiting at home for him. May good luck attend you! I am so glad that you will now have a roof of your own." Faller went with the security into the valley, and Lenz began his work; but he first wound up one of the clocks, and it played a hymn. He nodded in unison, while filing a wheel. "That clock plays well: it was her favourite air--my mother's," thought Lenz. The large clock, in a beautifully carved walnut-wood case, as tall as a clothes press, was called "The Magic Flute," for its principal piece was the overture to that opera of Mozart's, besides five other airs: it was already sold to a well-frequented tea-garden near Odessa. A small clock stood beside it, and Lenz was working at a third. He worked unremittingly till noon. He was very hungry, but when he sat down to table alone, all hunger seemed to leave him. He begged the old maid to sit down with him. She affected great shyness and modesty; however she allowed her scruples at last to be overcome, and when the soup was finished, she even volunteered the remark--"I really see no reason why you should marry." "Who says that I have any thoughts of marrying?" "My opinion is that if you do marry you ought to marry the beadle's daughter, Kathrine: she is come of good people, and has a great respect for you--she can talk of nothing but you. Such a wife would be worth having. It would be a bad business if you got a wife to whom you would have to play second fiddle. Girls, now-a-days, are so stylish in their ideas, and think of nothing but dress and vanity." "I have no thoughts of marriage, especially at this moment."