under a group of plane trees stepped a tall, erect woman. Her skirts shone a yellowish-brown color, over her head and shoulders was a black coarse-knit shawl. “Come
home now, won’t you?” she said to the man; “why aren’t you coming?”
“I’m coming,” he said; “only wait a little while. I want to see what that man is going to do. He’s a stranger. He’s hanging around here for no reason at all. Look at
him.”
He spoke of me as if I were deaf or did not understand his language. Now to be sure it did not much matter to me what he said, but it would naturally be unpleasant for
me were he to spread false reports about me in the village, no matter of what kind. For this reason I said to the woman: “I’m looking for the inn, that’s all. Your
husband has no right to speak of me that way and perhaps give you a wrong impression of me.”
But the woman hardly looked at me and went over to her husband (I had been correct in thinking him her husband; there was such a direct, self-evident relationship
between the two), and put her hand on his shoulder: “If there is anything you want, speak to my husband, not to me.”
“But I don’t want anything,” I said, irritated by the manner in which I was being treated; “I mind my business, you mind yours. That’s all I ask.” The woman tossed her
head; that much I was able to make out in the dark, but not the expression in her eyes. Apparently she wanted to say something in reply, but her husband said, “Keep
still!” and she was silent.
Our encounter now seemed definitely at an end; I turned, about to go on, when someone called out, “Sir!” It was probably addressed to me. For a moment I could not
tell where the voice came from, but then I saw a young man sitting above me on the farmyard wall, his legs dangling down and knees bumping together, who insolently
said to me: “I have just heard that you want to spend the night in the village. You won’t find liveable quarters anywhere except here on this farm.”
“On this farm?” I asked, and involuntarily—I was furious about it later—cast a questioning glance at the man and wife, who still stood there pressed against each other
watching me.
“That’s right,” he said, with the same arrogance in his reply that there was in all his behavior.
“Are there beds to be had here?” I asked again, to make sure and to force the man back into his role of landlord.
“Yes,” he said, already averting his glance from me a little, “beds for the night are furnished here, not to everyone, but only to those to whom they are offered.”
“I accept,” I said, “but will naturally pay for the bed, just as I would at the inn.”
“Please,” said the man, who had already been looking over my head for a long time, “we shall not take advantage of you.”
He sat above like a master, I stood down below like a petty servant; I had a great desire to stir him up a little by throwing a stone up at him. Instead I said, “Then please
open the door for me.”
“It’s not locked,” he said.
“It’s not locked,” I grumbled in reply, almost without knowing it, opened the door, and walked in. I happened to look up at the top of the wall immediately afterwards; the
man was no longer there, in spite of its height he had apparently jumped down from the wall and was perhaps discussing something with the man and wife. Let them
discuss it, what could happen to me, a young man with barely three gulden in cash and the rest of whose property consisted of not much more than a clean shirt in his
rucksack and a revolver in his trouser pocket. Besides, the people did not look at all as if they would rob anyone. But what else could they want of me?
It was the usual sort of neglected garden found on large farms, though the solid stone wall would have led one to expect more. In the tall grass, at regular intervals,