People had pitied Lenz, because his father-in-law's ruin would probably be fatal to him also. He had answered confidently that he would stand firm; now, however, there was an incessant coming and going. Wherever Lenz owed a few kreuzers they were demanded from him, and he no longer got credit from anyone. Lenz did not know which way to turn, and he dared not confess to Annele the most severe blow of all, for she had warned him against it,--in the midst of all these troubles, Faller's creditors called up the sum due on his house; Lenz's security being no longer valid in their eyes. Faller was in an agony of distress when he was forced to tell this to Lenz, bewailing that, being a married man, he did not know where to lay his head. Lenz unhesitatingly promised him speedy help; his former good name, and that of his parents, would still be remembered. The world cannot be so hard as to forget the well known integrity of his family. Annele only knew of the smaller debts, and said:--"Go to your uncle, he must assist you." Yes, to his uncle! Petrowitsch made a point of invariably leaving the village when a funeral took place there--not from compassion--but it was a disagreeable sight--and the very day after the ruin of the Landlord, Petrowitsch left home, yielding up on this occasion the unripe cherries in his avenue, as a harvest to the passers by, and he did not return till winter had fairly set in, and a new landlord settled in the "Golden Lion," the old proprietors having gone to live in a house adjoining that of their son-in-law, the wood merchant, in a neighbouring town. The old Landlord of the "Lion" had borne his fate with almost admirable equanimity; once only, at a little distance from the village, when the Techniker drove past him in his caleche, with his two chesnuts, the Landlord lost his usual phlegmatic composure, but no one saw him stagger and stumble into a ditch, where he lay for a long time, till at last he managed to scramble out. Petrowitsch walked now in a different direction. He no longer passed Lenz's house, nor went to the wood, which was, indeed, by this time nearly cut down. Lenz used to sit up late calculating; he could devise nothing, and soon a sum was offered to him, but it seemed to him as burning as if it had been coined in the Devil's workshop. Ernestine's husband came one day with a stranger to the Morgenhalde, and said:--"Lenz, here is a person who will buy your house." "What do you mean? my house?" "Yes, you said so yourself; it is of much less value now that it formerly was, for since the wood has been felled, its situation is very dangerous, but still proper precautions may be taken." "Who, pray, said I wished to sell my house?" "Your wife." "What? my wife? Come in: Annele, did you say I would sell my house?" "Not exactly; I only said to Ernestine, that if her husband knew of a respectable inn in a good situation, we would buy it, and then sell our house here."