‘No, I’m not cold. That is, I am a little cold. You can close the window if you like.’

When he sat down again he said, ‘Well, and were there a lot of goats there?’

‘Goats? Why goats?’

‘I don’t know, no special reason.’

‘Ha-ha — a nice association of ideas! Goats and bank clerks! Actually, there are some goats there. I saw a few. But mainly there are a lot of cows — fat cows. In the evening the air is full of the tinkling of their bells when they come home from the pastures. A hail of bells all over the village. But they’re only a fraction of the herds. Most of them stay up in the Alps all summer long and only come down in the autumn. And their owners greet them like long-lost children. In the evenings, after work, the cows are the main topic of conversation in the church square. They come down with garlands of mountain flowers on their heads and heavy bells hanging round their necks. Every prosperous farmer has a few cows on the Alps.’

‘It must be very interesting — life in a village in the Tyrol. People like them must still be living as they did three hundred years ago.’

‘Almost. At least the old ones. The younger generation is already a little spoiled by the spirit of the times. They’ve been in the war, in prison camps, and their original colours have been a little blurred. But in a couple of years it will all be forgotten. Everything will go back to what it used to be. The mountains conquer people, stamp them with their own special stamp, force them to submit to their own way of life. Life is hard there, grim and depressing. No wonder that the mountain people are all so God-fearing and superstitious.’

Martin began to cry, and Gurdweill hurried over to rock the carriage. Lotte, too, rose to her feet and came to stand next to Gurdweill and look at the baby — which gave Gurdweill an uneasy feeling, like an echo of what he had felt before.

‘I don’t know what the matter is with him today. He always sleeps through the evening and only wakes up at about four o’clock in the morning.’

‘Does Thea breastfeed him?’

‘Of course! What did you think?’

‘I thought that you … Ha-ha-ha! Since you do everything else.’

Gurdweill forced a smile.

‘You should have taken a nursemaid for him,’ she said with a sneer.

‘I couldn’t afford it,’ replied Gurdweill seriously. ‘But no! Even if I could I wouldn’t have done it. You can’t trust them. They don’t take care of strange babies properly …’

‘But taking care of strange babies is a nursemaid’s job. They don’t get paid for looking after their own babies, you know!’