"I was telling my wife a story about a rich man who was curious, too. He shot himself just to find out what comes after death. Ha, ha, ha! That's the height of curiosity, isn't it? Shooting yourself to find out what comes after death!"
But he could not make his family laugh at this tale, either. His wife stood still; her face was beautiful.
"So you're leaving now," was all she said.
Mr. Brede's porter came out with his luggage; he had stayed at the farm for these three days in order to be at hand.
Then the manufacturer walked down through the field, accompanied by his wife and children.
I don't know--this man with his good humor and kindliness and money and everything, fond of his children, all in all to his wife--
Was he really everything to his wife?
The first evening he wasted time on a party, and every night he wasted time in snoring. And so the three days and nights went by....
XIX
It is very pleasant here at harvest time. Scythes are being sharpened in the field, men and women are at work; they go thinly clad and bareheaded, and call to one another and laugh; sometimes they drink from a bucket of whey, then set to work again. There is the familiar fragrance of hay, which penetrates my senses like a song of home, drawing me home, home, though I am not abroad. But perhaps I am abroad after all, far away from the soil where I have my roots.