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PARTISAN REVIEW
Oberlin looked at him with displeasure and prepared to go. Lenz flitted
after him, fixing him with a ghastly look; "You see, now I have an idea
\
after all, if I could only distinguish whether I'm dreaming or awake ;
you see, it's very important, wc must look into it."- Thcn hc flittcd back
into bed.
In the afternoon Oberlin wished to pay a visit in the neighborhood.
His wife had already left. He was about to leave when someone knocked
on the door, and Lcnz came in, his body bent forward, his head hanging
down ; his whole face and part of his clothing covered with ashes, his
left hand supporting his right arm. I-Ie asked Oberlin to pull his arm,
since he had twisted it in the act of throwing himself out of the window;
but since nobody had seen him do it he did not want anyone else to
know. Oberlin was violently shocked, but said nothing; he did what
Lenz asked him to do. Immediately aftcrwards he wrote to the school–
master at Bellefosse, asking him to come down, and giving him instruc–
tions; then he rode away.
The man arrived. Lenz had often seen him before and had become
attached to him. The schoolmaster pretended he had come to discuss
certain matters with Oberlin and would then leave. Lenz asked him to
stay, and so they remained together. Lenz suggested a walk to Fouday.
He visited the grave of the child whom he had once tried to raise from
the dead, knelt down several times, kissed the earth on the grave, seemed
to be praying, but confusedly plucked up some of the flowers that grew
on the grave, to keep as a souvenir, returned to Waldbach, turned back
again, and Sebastian with him. Sometimes he walked slowly and com–
plained of a great weakness in his limbs, then again with desperate haste ;
the landscape frightened him, it was so narrow that he was afraid of
colliding with every object he could sec. An indescribable feeling of dis–
comfort came upon him, his companion began to be a burden to him;
also, perhaps, he guessed his intention, and now tried to get rid of him.
Sebastian seemed to give in to him, but found secret means of informing
his brother of the danger, and now Lenz had two keepers instead of one.
He continued to drag them along with him; at last he returned to Wald–
bach, and as they approached the village, turned about quick as lightning
and leaped away like a stag, in the direction of Fouday. While they were
looking for him at Fouday, two shopkeepers approached them and told
them that a stranger who confessed that he was a murderer had been
arrested in one of the houses and had been bound, but that surely he
could not be a murderer. They ran to the house and found it so. A
young man, intimidated by Lenz's awkward gestures, had bound him.
They released him and brought him safely to Waldbach, where they
