Old Danner tosses and turns restlessly in bed. He can’t get to sleep tonight.

He tries to, but the wind, constantly whistling through the cracks in the window frame, gives him no peace.

He’s turned the whole house upside down today. He can’t get those footprints out of his mind. Footprints leading to the house. He could see them clearly in the newly fallen snow this morning, before the rain washed them away.

He looked in every nook and cranny of the house. Didn’t find anything. He’s sure no one can hide from him on his own property. This is his domain.

He’s repaired the lock on the machinery shed. The fellow must have gone around the house and made off in the direction of the woods. He can only have gone that way. Otherwise he, Danner, would have found more tracks.

In the evening he searched the whole property again. In the process he noticed that the lightbulb in the cowshed had gone out. He’ll have to get a new one. Until then they’ll just have to make do as best they can with the old oil lamps.

The new maid looks as if she’d be a good, hard worker. That’s what he needs. He can’t be doing with anyone who’s work-shy. The farm is too much for him and Barbara on their own. During the summer, anyway.

In winter they get by somehow.

It’s harder and harder to find laborers and maids to work on the land these days. Most of them try their luck in town. Lured there by better pay and lighter work.

Town life, that’s not for him. He has to feel free. Be his own master. No one tells him what to do. He decides on everything here. On this farm he is Lord God Almighty, never mind how much his wife prays. The older she grows the more pious she gets.

What’s keeping the old woman in the kitchen so long? Sits praying under that crucifix half the night, wasting expensive electric light.

He’ll have to get up and go and see.

In his socks, clad only in his nightshirt and a pair of long johns, he slips his wooden clogs on. Shuffles down the stone flags of the corridor to the kitchen.

The door of the room next to it is open.

What the hell’s the idea? What are those women doing in the cowshed at this time of night? You had to see to everything yourself around here.

Very annoyed, he goes into the room next to the kitchen and then on, over to the cowshed.