He fell silent. A jolt passed through his body, and I thought he was about to get up and leave the shed, but then he slumped over again and stared at the ground. ‘You’ve seen the land,’ he whispered. ‘It’s big. But it’s not big enough to support everything. In the beginning it was different. On warm evenings we would sit in front of the house and gaze into the distance. But I would always look at her face as well. It was so beautiful with the evening sun on it. I couldn’t help but love her.’

He stared for a while at the moon in the rectangle of the doorway. Then he continued. ‘So the years passed, and everything could have been fine. But at some point she grew restless. She couldn’t keep her hands still. There was something in her, a longing, I don’t know . . . In any case she wanted . . . she wanted things.’

Suddenly he got to his feet. He was excited, breathing heavily, and I was afraid Lotte would wake up. I said, ‘Sit down, go on.’ He sat down again.

‘I thought it would all sort itself out. Maybe I should’ve . . . I don’t know. At any rate, she became dissatisfied. She didn’t want to sit out in front of the house of an evening any more. She said the countryside was bleak and the sun hurt her eyes. She became hard and mean. And I became hard as well. Maybe I was unfair. But what was I supposed to do? I was terribly afraid she might leave. I told her we had to have patience, and trust. We simply had to stay together. That’s what I kept telling her.’

The farmer bent forward. It looked as if he was in pain. Then he sat up straight again and went on talking. His voice was trembling now, and he was whispering even more quiet­­ly than before.

‘One evening in spring I was sitting alone outside the house. I’d been drinking, and the land stretched out in front of me as if it had no limits. Suddenly everything seemed easy again, and I wanted to show her all this beauty. I wanted to put my arms around her; I thought she would understand me, and from now on everything would be fine. I called her name, but she didn’t answer, so I went into the house. She was sitting at the table, staring at a bowl of onions. I told her to come outside with me, I wanted to show her something. But she just shook her head, and that made me angry. I slammed the door behind me and started badgering her. I wanted her finally to understand, and I wanted things to go back to the way they were before. I raised my voice. I reproached her. I said terrible things. I shouted and raged. I slammed my fists against the kitchen cupboard. I took the bowl of onions and threw it at the plate rack. I stamped on the crockery and the onions. The shards cracked and crunched under my boots, and everything, everything went to pieces.’