"Why not?"
"Why? You ought to know that yourself. If Jochem has once been at the table, you can never get rid of him again. So we'd better not have him at all. You don't know how an old blind man eats."
After that, not a word was spoken during the meal. Walpurga made believe that she was eating, but she was merely choking down her tears, and left the table soon afterward. She is keenly sensitive to such rudeness and cruelty; but she never complains, not even to me.
(During a violent storm.)
What a fright I have had to-day! My little pitchman told me that a man had hanged himself somewhere in the vicinity.
"It had to come," thought he. "The man had hanged himself fifteen years ago, but they cut him down, and he lived on. But it was just as if he always had a rope around his neck--people who've once tried anything of that sort, never die a natural death."
How his words startled me.
Can it be that such dread fate is yet in store for me?
I answer: No! It shall not be!