Lenz of course could not, at such a moment, plague Faller by depriving him of the security; and when Annele inquired what he had done, he gave her an evasive answer. The night before the Techniker's marriage with the Doctor's daughter, Annele had a son. When Lenz was standing by her bedside, full of joy, she said:-- "Lenz, promise me one thing; promise me that you will give up Pilgrim, or that you will try for three months to do so." "I can make no such promise," said Lenz, and a bitter drop fell into the cup of his joy. Annele was painfully excited when the sounds of the wedding music in the valley reached her ears, and both her mother and her husband were alarmed for her life from such agitation; but she fell into a sound sleep at noon, and Lenz closed every door carefully to exclude all noise. She became now more composed, and was gentle and loveable, and Lenz felt truly grateful for his happiness, both as a husband and a father. Annele was so unusually amiable that she even said:-- "We promised Pilgrim that he should be godfather to our child, and this is a promise we must keep." It was strange to see how variable her moods were. Lenz wished Petrowitsch to be the other godfather, but he refused. Pilgrim brought the infant a large parchment, with a great many signatures and flourishes, painted by himself, which he laid on the cradle: it was a diploma from the Choral Society, in which the newly born child, on account of the fine voice he had no doubt inherited, was named an honorary member of the society. "Do you know," said Lenz, "what is the sweetest sound in the world? The first cry of your child. Do you see how he can clutch a thing already?" and he gave the infant his father's file into his little hand. Annele flung it away, exclaiming:-- "The child might kill himself with the sharp point," but in flinging it on the floor the point was broken. "My father's honourable tool, consecrated by his memory, is now destroyed," said Lenz, distressed. Pilgrim tried to console him by laughingly saying, that there must always be new men, and new tools, in the world. Annele did not say a syllable. CHAPTER XXV. THE PENDULUMS SWING TOGETHER, BUT THE STRESS ON THE MAINSPRING IS SEVERE. "Annele, come here, I have something to show you." "I have no time." "Only look, for it will please you. See, I set agoing two pendulums, on both these clocks, the one from right to left, and the other the reverse way. If you will observe, you will see that in the course of a few days they will both swing in the same direction, from right to left, or both the reverse way. That is owing to the power of attraction they mutually exercise; they approximate to each other by degrees." "I don't believe that."