On one June morning towards seven o'clock, Thiel arrived back from his duty. His wife had not so soon as finished her greeting, when she began to complain in her usual manner. The lease on the field, which had, up to this time, provided the family with its potato requirement, had been terminated weeks ago, and Lene had not yet succeeded in finding a replacement. Even though the care of the field was part her responsibilities, Thiel had to hear about this once again, that no-one, except he, would be to blame, if this year, they had to buy ten sacks of potatoes for a considerable sum of money. Thiel only muttered and he took himself immediately off to the bed of his eldest son, which he shared with him in the nights while he was on duty, paying little attention to Lene's speech. Here, he stooped and watched the sleeping child with an anxious expression on his good face, whom he eventually woke, after he had, for a while, kept the troublesome flies away from him. In the blue, deep-lying eyes of the awaking boy a touching peace reflected itself. He hastily reached out for his father's hand, while he shaped the corner of his mouth into a pitiful smile. The signalman helped him to get dressed into the small pieces of clothing, when something, like a shadow, suddenly ran through his mind, as he noticed that on the right-hand, slightly-swollen side of the child's back, a few finger marks standing out, white on red.
When Lene came back at breakfast, with increased enthusiasm concerning the aforementioned housekeeping matter, Thiel cut her words with the news that the railway-inspector had let him have a piece of land along-side the railway-track right next to the signalman's hut, for nothing, supposedly because it was too remote for him, the railway-inspector.
At first, Lene did not want to believe this. However, little by little, her doubts went away, and now she changed into a noticeably good mood. Her questions about the size and quality of the field became really mixed up with others, and when she found out that in addition at this place were two dwarf fruit-trees, she became totally crazy! When she had no-more questions left to ask, and had mercilessly rung the door-bell of the grocer's shop, which, incidentally, could be heard in every house in the hamlet, she rushed out, in order to spread the news in the small hamlet.
While Lene was in the grocer's dark room, packed with goods, the signalman occupied himself at home with Tobias. The boy sat on his knee and played with a single pine-cone, which Thiel had brought out of the forest with him.
'What do you want to be?' his father asked him; and this question was as stereotypical as the boy's answer: 'A railway-inspector.' There was no question, that with God's help, something extraordinary ought to come out of Tobias, for the dreams of the signalman aspired in such heights, and he harboured the wish and the hope, in all seriousness. As soon as the answer, 'a railway-inspector', came from the bloodless lips of the small boy, who naturally did not know what that was to mean, Thiel's face began to lighten up, until it really shone with an inner bliss.
'Go Tobias, go and play!' he said abruptly, while he lit his pipe with a lighted spill from the cooking-stove, and the small boy took himself directly out towards the door with a cautious joy. Thiel undressed and went to bed and fell asleep, after he had stared, for some considerable time, full of thought, at the low, cracked ceiling. Towards twelve o'clock midday, he woke up, dressed himself, and went outside into the street, while his wife was preparing lunch in her noisy manner, where he immediately picked up little Tobias, who was scratching chalk out of a hole in the wall and putting it into his mouth. The signalman took him by the hand and went with him past about eight houses in the hamlet, down to the Spree, which lay black and glassy between sparsely leaved poplars. Near to the edge of the water was a block of granite, on which Thiel sat down.
The entire hamlet was used to seeing him here in this place, if the weather was at all tolerable. The children especially, hung around him and called him 'father Thiel' and were taught, in particular, a number of games, which he remembered from his childhood. The best of his memories, however, he kept for Tobias. He cut for him a reed-dart, which flew higher than all of those of the other boys. He cut for him a small willow-pipe and even allowed himself to be persuaded to sing the magic formula, in his rusty bass voice, while he tapped the bark softly with the horn-handle of his pocket knife.
The people were not at all pleased by his childish tricks; it seemed incomprehensible to them that he was able to spend so much time with the snotty-nosed children. However, they allowed him to be content for the reason that the children were well-looked after in his care. Moreover, Thiel also instructed them in more serious things: he went through the older ones' school work, helped them to learn hymn and Bible verses and he spelt with the younger ones: F-R-O-M - from; Y-O-U - you, and so on.
After lunch, the signalman laid himself down once more for a short rest. After it was over, he drank his afternoon coffee and immediately began to prepare for going on duty. He need a lot of time to do all of his preparations; each movement had been worked out for many years; the carefully laid out objects on the small, walnut chest-of-drawers were always put into his clothes' pockets in the same sequence: knife, note-book, comb, a horse's tooth and the old, cased watch. A small book, wrapped in red paper, was handled with special care. During the night, it had lain under the signalman's pillow and was, during the day, always carried around in the breast pocket of his work clothes. On the label, under the wrapping, in awkward, but ornamental, lettering, was written by Thiel's hand, 'Savings book of Tobias Thiel.'
The wall-clock with the long pendulum and the yellow face showed a quarter-to-five, when Thiel set off. A small rowing-boat, his property, took him across the river. On the far bank of the Spree, he stood for a few moments and listened back at the hamlet. Finally, he turned on to the broad forest path, and a few minutes later, he was in the middle of the deep-rustling pine forest, whose pine-needles looked like a black-green, wavy sea. Inaudible, like on felt, he strode across damp moss and layers of needles on the forest-floor. He found his way, without looking up, here through the russet-coloured columns of the timber forest, then further on through the densely packed young wood, still further on through the expanded forestry plantation, which was over-shadowed by single, tall, thin pine-trees, left for the protection for the young trees. A bluish, transparent haze, impregnated with all kinds of smells, rose up from the ground and seemed to wash away the forms of the trees. A heavy, milky sky hung low over the tree-tops. Swarms of crows bathed themselves in the grey of the air, mercilessly expelling their screeching voices. Black pools of water filled the hollows of the path and more gloomily mirrored the dull surroundings.
Terrible weather, thought Thiel, when he awoke from deep thought and looked up.
Suddenly, however, his thoughts took another direction. He vaguely felt that he had left something at home, and after searching through his pockets, he was missing his sandwiches, which he was always obliged to take for halfway through the long duty-time. Hesitantly, he stood there for a while, then suddenly, he turned around, and hurried back in the direction of the village.
After a short-time, he had reached the Spree; he crossed over with a few powerful oar-strokes, and he straightaway climbed up on to the gently rising village street, his whole body sweating. The grocer's old, shabby poodle lay in the middle of the street. On the tarred, wooden fence of a cottager's yard sat a hooded crow. It puffed up its feathers, shook itself, nodded, struck up an ear-shattering crowing and took off with a whistling wing-beat, to allow itself to be carried off by the wind into the direction of the forest.
Of the inhabitants of the small hamlet, about twenty fishermen and forest-workers with their families, nothing was to be seen.
The sound of a screeching voice broke the silence, so loud and shrill that the signalman paused involuntary in his running. A wave of violently forced-out, discordant sounds struck his ears, which seemed to be coming out of the open gabel-window of a house close by, which he knew only too well.
Making the noise of his footsteps as quiet as possible, he crept nearer and distinguished rather clearly the voice of his wife. Only a few more steps further, and he was able to understand most of her words.
'What, you merciless, heartless scoundrel! Should the miserable worm cry out its belly from hunger? - What? Eh? Wait, just wait, I'll teach you a lesson - I'll give you something to remember!' For a few moments it was quiet; then a noise could be heard, like if pieces of clothing were being hit. Directly afterwards, a new storm of abusive words vented itself.
'You detestable, little idiot!' rang out in the quickest tempo. 'Do you mean that I ought to leave my own child to hunger, because of such a miserable wretch like you?' she shouted, as a soft-wimpering became audible, 'Or I'll give you a beating that you won't forget for a week.'
The wimpering did not fall silent.
The signalman felt his heart beating heavily and irregularly. He began to shake slightly. His glance hung, as if absent, firmly on the ground, and his clumsy, hard hand several times pushed a tuft of wet hair to the side, which each time fell back over his freckled brow.
For a moment, something threatened to over-power him. It was a cramp, which made his muscles swell and the fingers of his hand clench into a fist. It abated and a dull weariness remained.
The signalman trod with unsure footsteps into the narrow tiled hallway. Wearily and slowly, he climbed the creaking wooden stairs.
'Shame, shame, shame!' she began again, and in the process one could hear how someone spewed this out, three times in succession, with all signs of rage and contempt. 'You detestable, vile, deceiptful, malicious, cowardly, nasty lout!' The words followed each other in a rising tone and her voice, which she was forcing out, broke now and again from the strain. 'What, you want to hit my boy? You miserable brat, you have the impudence to hit the helpless child on the mouth? - What? - Eh, what? I do not want to dirty myself on you, however...'
At this moment, Thiel opened the living-room door, as the end of the started sentence stuck in the startled woman's throat. She was as white as chalk with anger; her lips twitched violently; she raised up her right-hand, she lowered it, and reached out for the milk jug, from which she tried to fill a baby's bottle. However, she left this task half finished, since the greater part of the milk ran over the neck of the bottle on to the table. Completely beside herself through rage, she reached in one moment for this thing, in the next moment for that thing, unable to hold on to it for longer than a few seconds; and finally, she plucked up enough courage to scold her husband violently. What did it mean, that he had come home at such an unusual time; he would not at all want to keep an eye on her; 'That would be still the last straw!' she said, and straight afterwards, she had a clear conscience and she needed to lower her eyes before no-one.
Thiel heard little of what she said. He cast a fleeting glance over the small, howling Tobias. For a moment, it seemed as if he had to forcibly hold back something terrible, which aroused in him; then the old apathy suddenly laid itself over his tense expression, strangely revived by a furtive, longing gleam in his eyes.
For a seconds, he glanced over the powerful limbs of his wife, who, busying about with her face turned away, still sought self-control. Her full, half-naked breasts swelled themselves from rage and threatened to spring from her bodice, and her tucked-up skirt appeared to make her broad hips still broader. A power seemed to come from the woman, unconquerable, inescapable, to which Thiel did not feel himself to be a match.
Like a fine spider's web, and just like a net of iron, it easily laid itself around him, binding, surmounting, enervating. In this condition, he would not have been able to direct any word at her, at the very least a harsh one. And so Tobias, who was bathed in tears, crouched, frightened, in a corner, had to watch how his father, without turning around to him again, took his forgotten sandwiches from the oven shelf, holding them out to the mother as the only sign, and with a short, distracted shake of the head, he immediately disappeared again.
railway-inspector
The railway-inspector or Bahnmeister was an official of fairly high
rank in the railway system and was fairly well paid compared to the signalmen
such as Thiel.
magic formula
It was tradition to sing such a song while making these pipes.
snotty-nosed
This is a direct translation from the German.
timber forest
The pine forests in the surrounding of Neu-Zittau were used extensively
for timber production. See note on 'Brandenburg' above.
young wood
This was an area of land on which saplings had been planted to replace
those trees which were cut down.
she shouted
The German in fact does not refer to Lene herself, but to the words
being shouted. In translation, it is less clumsy to refer to the speaker.
she began again
See note above on 'she shouted'.
last straw
The German literally says 'that would be the last'. This is best translated
idiomatically as '...last straw'. Compare this use of 'das Letzte' here
with the 'das ganze', used in chapter 1 - see note above on 'her lot'.
tucked-up skirt
It was the fashion in such times for women to wear several layers of
skirt. Through anger, Lene's layers of skirt have ridden up around her
hips, making them seem broader.