No, I was never pestered by old Danner. But I’d have known how to deal with that, believe you me. I don’t let anyone take liberties with me.

What was the relationship like between Danner and his daughter Barbara Spangler?

Ah, I see what you’re getting at.

Well, I can’t really say, I didn’t let it bother me, and anyway I wasn’t at the farm all that long, just from spring to autumn.

Did Barbara Spangler sleep in the same bedroom as her father, like some people say? I can’t swear to anything of that kind.

People talk a lot. I can only say what I saw. And it was only once I saw the two of them together, in the barn. I’m not even quite certain of that.

I went in and there was the two of them lying in the hay. Barbara jumped up just as I came into the barn. If she hadn’t jumped up I wouldn’t have seen her.

I acted like I hadn’t noticed anything, and I didn’t either. Nothing precise anyway.

None of my business, you see. Am I the priest or a judge? What’s it got to do with me?

Barbara was ever so embarrassed by the whole thing, she said if she’d known I was going to go into the barn again she wouldn’t have gone out.

Do I think those children are her father’s? Well, what a question to ask!

You want me to be honest, yes, I do, but of course I can’t know for sure. I mean, I wasn’t there, was I? But I did hear Danner telling that deadbeat Karl how his daughter didn’t need any husband. She had him, he said. I heard that with my own ears.

It was because that Karl asked about Barbara Spangler’s husband. Where was he, he asked? Maybe he had his eye on Barbara. Well, he’d have gotten nowhere with her.

Neat and smart, Barbara looked, but she was a proud one, too. Took after her father.

As for Barbara Spangler’s mother, she never said much.

Grumpy, some called her. That’s not right, though. Worn out by troubles, disappointed by life, that’s what she was.

She just looked after her grandchildren and did the cooking. In the evening she always sat holding her prayer book. It was a very old prayer book, all shabby and worn. She always sat there holding that book and muttering to herself.

But once old Frau Danner did tell me her daughter’s husband was a terrible scoundrel and had emigrated to America.

He got the money for it from old Danner. I still remember how surprised I was the old lady told me that, because she hardly ever said anything at all.

There she sat, and she started talking. At first I didn’t even realize she was talking to me. She spoke so softly I thought, oh, she’s praying, and she couldn’t look you in the eye when she spoke to you.

Except with her grandchildren. She was a really loving grandma to those kids. I guess they were her only joy. Marianne and little Josef.

She can’t have had a good life with that husband of hers, that’s for sure.

He was a bit younger than her, and I’m sure he just married her for the farm. It belonged to the old woman, you see, and Danner married into it. I think she was sometimes afraid of him, because otherwise a person can’t keep her mouth shut all her life, can she? She must have been afraid of her husband, bad-tempered as he was. There was many a day when he didn’t have a kind word for his wife. He snapped at her, and she always took it lying down. I never heard her raise her voice to him once, not once. Not even the time when he threw the food all over the floor just because he said her “eternal praying” was getting on his nerves. He swept the dish off the table with his arm, and the food splashed all over the room. Old Frau Danner stood there and then cleaned it all up without saying anything. Just stood there like a beaten dog. And Barbara watched as she mopped it up. Me, I wouldn’t have put up with that.

And now I guess you want to hear the story about Hauer, too, am I right? Yes, I thought I knew what you were after straight away.

Well, Hauer, he’s their nearest neighbor. You can see his farm from the attic window. Yes, from the Danner farm they can look right across to Hauer’s property. It lies on the other side of the meadows. A fine place it is.

Ten minutes on foot, I should say, if you walk fast. I never timed it.

Like I said, from the attic window you can see it, but only from there, that’s the only place.

Hauer was chasing after Barbara. Very keen on her, he was. The little boy’s supposed to be his. At least, he claimed to be the father.

Well, what I mean is he had himself entered as Josef’s father at the registry office, in the register of births.

Barbara Spangler’s husband left right after their wedding, you see. Marianne wasn’t born yet. That’s what Hauer told me. Said he disappeared overnight. Here one day, gone the next.

Anyway, that’s what Hauer said, but no one at the farm ever mentioned it.

Hauer’s wife died three years back. She’d been ill for quite a long time. He told me so himself, and I heard it from people in the village, too.

She had cancer, it seems, and she lingered on for a long time.

Just as soon as his wife was dead, Hauer started his affair with Barbara Spangler. She was in love with him to start with, mad for him, she positively pressed herself on him soon after his wife died, he said.

Whether that’s true I don’t know. I don’t get the impression that Hauer would be much of a ladies’ man.

I’m only telling you what he told me himself. Hauer can get quite talkative when he’s had a beer too many.

Barbara must have fallen pregnant right after they got together. Then, once the little boy was born—little Josef, that was—she suddenly didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. He just had to register that he was the father, and after that she gave him the brush-off, or leastways that’s what he told me. He wanted to report Barbara and her father, so as their relationship would be brought out into the light of day. Because it’s a mortal sin, he said, it’s against nature, and so on and so forth.

But then Hauer had had one too many when he told me the story. At the church dedication festival, it was. He told me all the ins and outs of it.

I wasn’t really listening to the whole palaver, and I didn’t understand most of it either, he was so drunk.

I just happen to have seen for myself how once old Danner wouldn’t let Hauer see Barbara, you could say he hid her from him. He said she wasn’t at home. Although she was sitting in the little room next to the kitchen all the time.

If you want more details you’ll have to talk to Hauer himself. I’m not saying any more about it, you just get involved in tittle-tattle that way.

Well, if there’s no more questions you want to ask, I’ll go back to my work now, Like I said, no one gets paid for idling around.

Evening has come. Everyone else in the house is already in bed.

His son, Hansl, his sister-in-law, Anna. She came here six years ago now, their Anna did. When the first signs of his wife’s sickness were showing, and she wasn’t able to keep the place going anymore. Slowly, bit by bit, Anna took over the running of the household. She looked after Hansl as if he were her own son.

She nursed his wife when she was lying so sick up in the bedroom. His sister-in-law Anna unselfishly nursed her sister, his wife. Washed her in the morning, fed her. Cared for her all day long. Stood by her when it was clear what the end would be. When the sight of his wife’s suffering had become unbearable for him, she moved into their bedroom with his wife instead of him. To be with her at night as well, ease her suffering, give her comfort.

By then he already found it impossible to be close to his wife. Her infirmity scared him away, he couldn’t help her, couldn’t be any support to her. As should have been his duty. “For better and for worse, in sickness and in health.”