"But it's my servant," answered the master, "that's drinking up his money. When you carry on it comes back on me, and the people say that you're the Bottom-Farmer's man and that they can't imagine what he's thinking of to let you carry on so and to have such a servant as you. You haven't burned up any house yet, but think, Uli, wouldn't once be too much, and would you ever have a quiet moment again if you thought you had burned up my house, and if we and the children couldn't get out and were burned to death? And how about your work? I'd rather have you lie abed all day long. Why, you fall asleep under the cows you're milking, and you don't see, hear, or smell anything, and stumble around the house as if your liver was out of whack. It's terrible to watch you."
He wouldn't take this, said Uli, and if his work wasn't good enough for him he'd leave. But it was always so nowadays, you couldn't satisfy a master any more, even if working all the time; one was worse than the other. As for pay, they wanted to give less and less, and the food got worse every day. After awhile one would have to gather fleas, beetles, and grasshoppers if one wanted to have meat and fat with his vegetables.
"Listen, Uli," said the master, "you're in a bad temper still, and I oughtn't to have said anything to you. But I'm sorry for you, for you've been a fine lad and used to be able to work. For awhile I thought you'd turn out well, and I was glad. But since you began this idling and night-running, you've become a different fellow. You don't care about anything any more; you're a sorehead, and when I say the least word to you either sauce me or sulk for a week. Go now, think it over, and if you're not willing to change, then in God's name leave me; I don't want you any longer. Give me your answer in a week."
He'd soon have his mind made up, it wouldn't take a week, Uli growled as he went out; but the master pretended not to hear.
When the master came out, his wife asked him as usual, "What did you say to him, and what did he say?"
"I couldn't do anything with him," answered the master. "Uli is still in a bad temper, for he hasn't slept off his spree yet; it would have been better to talk to him tomorrow or in the evening, after the natural seediness of 'the day after' had softened him up a little. Now I've given him time to think it over, and shall wait and see what comes of it."
Uli went out in bitter anger, as if the greatest injustice had been done him. He flung the tools around as though everything was to go to smash in the one day, and he bawled at the cattle until the master ached in every bone. But the latter forced himself to be calm, merely saying once, "Easy, easy!" With the other servants Uli had no dealings, but scowled at them too. As the master had not reprimanded him before the others, he did not care to inform them of his disgrace, and because he did not make common cause with them he considered that they were on the master's side and his enemies—a state of mind quite in accord with that deeply truthful saying: "He that is not for me is against me." So there was no one to put notions into his head, and he had no opportunity to swear that the devil or what-not might take him if he stayed here an hour after his time was up.
Little by little the wine and other spirits departed from him, and more and more sluggish grew his limbs; the previous tension yielded to an intolerable exhaustion, which affected not only body but mind. And as every act of the exhausted body is hard and painful to perform, so every past and potential act seems to the exhausted spirit, which would fain weep over what it laughed at before; what formerly caused pleasure and joy now brings only grief and sorrow; the things but yesterday eagerly grasped now bring a craze that would tear the hair from its head, aye, even the whole head from its body. When this mood envelops the soul it is irresistible, and over all a man's thought and ideas it casts its sickly gleam.
While Uli, as long as the effect of the wine was upon him, had been angry with the master for his rebuke, now that its force was spent he became angry at himself for his debauch. He recalled the twenty-three farthings which he had gone through in one evening, and which would now take almost a fortnight's work to earn again. He was angry at the work which he would have to do for this purpose, at the wine which he had drunk, at the tavern-keeper who had furnished it, and so on. He lost all sense, forgot everything, did everything wrong. He was uncomfortable, discontented with himself, hence also with all others, with the whole world; he had good words for none, and nothing suited him. He imagined that the mistress was intentionally cooking poor meals and preparing everything he didn't like; that the master was tormenting him with needless work; that the horses were all bad-tempered and that the cows purposely did everything they could to bother him—the stupidest cows that ever grazed on God's earth.
The farmer and his wife let the lad alone; it seemed as if they paid no heed to him. But it was not so. The mistress had once or twice remarked to her husband how wildly Uli was carrying on—she had never known him to be in such a state before. Had her husband spoken too sharply to him? But the farmer did not think so; Uli wasn't angry at him alone but at the whole world, he said—probably chiefly angry at himself and was letting it out on others.