"No, nothing from him, thank you for asking. Nothing."
"I suppose he'll be coming soon. I thought you might have heard."
"No, not since last spring. Johannes is in foreign parts, it seems."
"Yes, in foreign parts. He is well. He writes himself in a book that he is in the days of small sorrows. So he must be well."
"Oh yes, oh yes, God knows. We are waiting for him."
"Perhaps he is better off where he is, since his sorrows are small. Well, that's his affair. I only wanted to know whether he was coming home this spring. Good-night again."
"Good-night."
The Miller and his wife followed her out.
They saw her return to the Castle with her head held high, stepping over the puddles in the muddy road with her thin shoes.
A day or two after a letter arrived from Johannes. He was coming home in a little over a month, when he had finished another new book. He had got on well all this time, his new work went rapidly, all life had been surging through his brain....