Old Frau Danner is sitting at the kitchen table, praying:
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Thou art our salvation,
Thou alone art our life, our resurrection.
I therefore pray Thee
do not abandon me in my hour of need,
but for the sake of Thy most sacred heart’s struggle with death,
and for the sake of Thy immaculate mother’s pain,
come to the aid of Thy servants,
whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.
She holds her old, well-worn prayer book. She is alone, alone with herself and her thoughts.
Barbara is out in the cowshed, taking a last look at the cattle. Her husband is already in bed. Like the children and the new maid.
She treasures this time of the evening as the most precious thing she has. She sits in the kitchen with The Myrtle Wreath in her hands. The prayer book is worn and shabby now. Back then, many years ago, a whole lifetime ago, she was given The Myrtle Wreath: A Spiritual Guide for Brides for her wedding day, according to the custom of the time. A book of devotions for Christian women.
Who knows, could she have lived this life without the grace and comfort of God and the Mother of God? A life full of humiliations, indignities, and blows. Only the comfort she found in her faith kept her going. Kept her going all these years. Who could she have confided in? Her mother died during the First World War. So did her father soon afterward, at the time when her future husband came to the farm to work as a laborer.
When he arrived, it was the first time anyone had ever paid her even a little attention. That attention was a balm to her soul. Her whole life up to now had been ruled by work and her parents’ deep religious faith.
She grew up in cold, sanctimonious surroundings. No tenderness, no loving embraces to warm her soul, not a kind word. The life she led was marked by the rhythm of the seasons and the work on the farm that went with them, and by her parents’ life within the boundaries of their stern faith.
Such spiritual narrowness of mind could be felt almost physically.
Then the man who would be her husband came to the farm as a laborer. She, who had never been particularly pretty, was now desired by this good-looking man. From the first she knew in her heart of hearts that she herself, a nondescript little woman and already fading, was not the true object of his desire. Still unmarried, she was an old maid at thirty-two. He was tall and well built, and not yet twenty-seven. But she closed her eyes to the fact that he wanted the farm not her body.
Against her better judgment she agreed to marry him. He changed soon after the wedding. Showed his true nature. Was uncivil, insulted her, even hit her when she didn’t do as he wanted.
She took it all without complaint. No one could understand it, but she loved her husband, loved him even when he beat her. She was dependent on every word he spoke, everything he did. Never mind how rough and hard-hearted he proved to be.
When she was expecting her child, his brutality was hard to bear. He humiliated her in every possible way. Cheated on her openly, before all eyes, with the maid they had at the farm then. That was the first time she had to move out of the marital bedroom and into a smaller one because another woman had taken her place. She was enslaved by him, subjected, in bondage to him. For the rest of her life.
Her daughter, Barbara, was born in the fields at potato-harvesting time.
He didn’t even allow the heavily pregnant mother the privilege of a confinement in her own bed. On the morning when she felt the first contractions he made her go out into the fields with the others. She was bent double with pain, and when blood was already running down her legs, and the child was fighting its determined way out of her body with all its might, she gave birth to the little creature at the side of the field. Brought her into the world there under the open sky. He forced her to go on working in the days after she gave birth, too. She had no peace.
The maid left, and she moved back into her bedroom. She let him have his way with her again. Without complaint. She couldn’t help it.
Maids came and went. Few of them stayed long. As time passed her husband calmed down, or so she thought. She was resigned to her fate.
Her daughter grew up. Barbara adored her father, and he showed her great love and tenderness. She was twelve when her father first raped her. It took the mother some time to see the change in her daughter.
She didn’t want to notice the abuse of her own child. Didn’t want to acknowledge it. Was too weak to leave her husband, and where could she have gone? His conduct had one advantage: it meant that he lost interest in her entirely.
The more his daughter grew to womanhood, the less he wanted to sleep with his wife. She was perfectly happy with that state of affairs.
So she kept quiet. Her husband could do as he pleased, he never met with any resistance.
Except once, when the little Polish girl was here on the farm, assigned to them as a foreign worker. The girl got away from him. The way she did it was barred to his wife.
She had lived a hard life. A life full of deprivation and indignity, but she couldn’t give it up. She must tread the path to the end, she would empty the bitter goblet to the dregs. She knew that. It was the trial that the Lord had laid upon her.
Funny, that Polish girl has come back into her mind several times today, flitting through her memory like a shadow. She hadn’t thought of the foreign worker for years. The old woman puts her prayer book down.
She looks through the window into the dark, stormy night.
Her husband has spent all day searching for whatever ne’er-do-well tried to break into the farm yesterday. She heard footsteps last night. As if someone were haunting the place.
Her husband found nothing, and he had been calm enough all day.
“The fellow will have run off again,” he told them. “There’s nothing missing, I searched everywhere. I’ll shut the dog up in the barn tonight; no one gets past the dog. And I’ll have my gun beside my bed.”
That had reassured them all. She felt safe, just as she had felt safe on this farm all her life.
Barbara said she was going out to the cowshed again, “to see that the cattle are all right.”
Where can Barbara be? She ought to have been back long ago. She’ll go and look for her.
Moving laboriously, she gets up from the table. She takes her prayer book and puts it on the kitchen dresser. And goes out, over to the cowshed.
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.