'Jena' or 'Sedan'?

by Franz Adam Beyerlein

The lowing of the cows aroused him from his dismal brooding. He had sent away old Wackwitz after rewarding him liberally: for he meant to do as his father had done, and manage all the work himself.

He gave the beasts their food, which had already been prepared for them. There was not a scrap of bread nor of butter in the house for himself. He made his way down to the village in the dark, and was glad to find that the baker's shop was not yet shut, and that a neighbour could provide him with some butter.

And when, dead tired after the varying experiences of the day, he went upstairs, there were no sheets on his bed. He could not take the trouble to rummage in the linen-chest, and crept heavy-heartedly between the rough woollen blankets.

Early next morning he was aroused by the uneasy mooing of the cows. He sprang from bed and scarcely gave himself time to wash. He had to bestir himself, and the fagging and worry lasted without intermittence from morning until night. He had hardly time to go down to the village inn in the middle of the day and get a hot meal.

He would not allow himself to fall short in any way, and was unremitting in his exertions.

But was this the condition on which, while a soldier, he had looked back with such longing? This haste and breathless labour, this hurrying from one thing to another without pause or rest?

He smiled bitterly to himself, and looked about him with dull, joyless eyes. He was tired with his day's work, and his back ached with fatigue; where was that joy of labour, which had formerly sustained him, and had lightened the burden on his shoulders?

Seed-time was coming on; when the young leaves of the lime-tree began to show as tender brown buds on the twigs, then the corn must be sown for the summer's harvest. But before that the fields, which had lain fallow through the winter, must be ploughed and harrowed.

Franz Vogt yoked the two dun cows, the strawberry remaining in her stall. Wintry weather persisted obstinately this year. As he followed the plough the hail lashed in his face, and the icy wind penetrated to the skin through his jacket and warm knitted vest. He turned his back to the storm in order to get breath, and hid his face behind a sheltering arm. More than once he broke off work half-way, and took back his team to their warm stable.

He would then spare no trouble with the beasts, and the two cows would soon be standing contentedly with their feet in the plentiful straw. But he himself would crouch before the cold hearth, trying to blow up the smouldering turf into a bright flame. He would throw his damp frieze coat over the back of a chair, and wait shivering for the fire to burn up and warm him. Sometimes he would dally with the thought that it might be best for him to sell up the whole place--house, stock, and field, and go into the town. Was he not living the life of a beast of burden? Worse, indeed! He had not had a single day of rest since his release: not one, among all these days of labour on which he had toiled till his bones ached. Wolf had told him how easily any poor devil could get on in town if he only had a fairly level head, how free and independent one could be there; how much more, then, a man with a few thousand thalers in his pocket!