LENZ
45
against gray stones and pierced the windows of the huts. The man
awoke. His eyes met a lighted picture on the wall and remained fixed
upon it, without a flicker; now he began to move his lips and prayed
softly, then loudly, then more loudly still. Meanwhile some people
entered the hut and, without so much as a word, fell upon their
knees. The girl was suffering from convulsions, the old woman was
rattling out her song, and chatting with the neighbors. The people
told Lenz that the man had come to this district a long time ago,
no one knew where from, he was reputed to be a saint, he could see
water underground and exorcise evil spirits, and people went on pil–
grimages to see him. At the same time Lenz discovered that he had
strayed further from the Steintal ; he left together with a party of
woodcutters who were going toward those parts. He was glad of the
company; he now felt uneasy in the presence of that powerful man,
who sometimes seemed to him to be talking in horrible tones. Also
he was afraid of himself when in solitude.
He came home. But the night now past had left a deep impres–
sion. The world had been bright, and now he felt in himself a stirring
and teeming toward an abyss into which a relentless power was
dragging him. Now he was burrowing within himself. He ate little;
many nights half spent in prayer and feverish dreams. A violent
surging, and then beaten back exhausted; he lay bathed in the hottest
tears and then suddenly acquired a strange strength, rose cold and
indifferent; his tears seemed like ice to him then, he could not help
laughing. The higher he raised himself by his efforts, the deeper down
he was hurled again. Once more everything converged into one
stream. Recollections of his old state of mind convulsed him and
threw searchlights into the wild chaos of his mind.
In the daytime he usually sat in the room downstairs. Madame
Oberlin went in and out of the room; he sketched, painted, read,
clutched at every diversion, always hurriedly changing from one to
another. But he felt particularly drawn to Madame Oberlin's com–
pany, when she was sitting there, the black hymn-book in front of
her, next to a plant that had been reared inside the room, the young–
est child between her knees; also he gave much attention to the child.
Once he was sitting like this when he grew anxious, jumped up and
began to walk about. The door ajar-then he heard the maid sing,
