You respond to it.

‘And now—now you’re the most shameful and disgusting blot on the State.’

‘Herr Kalübbe, you, who everyone praises so!’

‘Yes, them indoors! If a farmer comes to see you, or if ten farmers come to see you, it’s the same thing, it’s a farmer in town. And if they ever get really insolent, as you term it, then there’s plenty of you around. Behind the glass screen. And with a direct line to the police up on the wall.

‘But here, where we’re walking now, the farmer’s been sat for a hundred years, for a thousand years. Here it’s us that don’t belong. And I’m all alone in their midst, with my briefcase and my blue cuckoo stamp. And I am the State, and if things go well, then I will take with me just an edge of their self-esteem, and the cow out of their byre, and if things are rough, why, then I make them homeless at the end of a thousand years of their occupation.’

‘Can they really not pay?’

‘Sometimes they can’t, and sometimes they won’t. And of late they really haven’t wanted to.—You see, Thiel, there have always been a few rich farmers, who did really well for themselves, and they don’t see why they should be reduced to gnawing on a crust. And they don’t run their businesses in a rational way . . .

‘But what do we know about it? It’s none of our beeswax. What do we care about the farmers? They hoe their row, we hoe ours. But what bothers me is the way I walk among them dishonestly, like a hangman from the Middle Ages, who is despised, like a harlot with her parasol on her arm, that they all spit at, and with whom no one will sit down at a table.’

‘Hold it! Stop!’ calls Thiel, and he grabs his colleague by the sleeve. In the dust is a butterfly, a brown peacock butterfly, with trembling wings. Its antennae are moving gropingly in the sunshine, in the light, the warmth.

Kalübbe pulls his foot, which was already hovering over the creature, back. Pulls it back and stands still, looking down at the living brown dust.

‘Yes, there’s that as well, Thiel,’ he says in relief. ‘God knows you’re right. There’s that as well. And sometimes you manage to stop your foot in mid-air.—And now I’ve got one thing I want to ask you.’

‘What’s that?’ says Thiel.

‘Just now you showed restraint, and I was the wild one. Maybe we’ll swap roles in the course of the day. Then you must remember you will have to endure any insult, any scorn without reply—have to, you hear. A good bailiff doesn’t press charges for offensive behaviour or foul and abusive language, he just collects. You must never raise your hand, even if the other guy does. There are always too many witnesses against you. In fact, there are only witnesses against you. Will you remember that? Will you promise me?’

Thiel raises his hand.

‘And can you keep your promise?’

‘Yes,’ says Thiel.

‘All right then, we’re going to Farmer Päplow in Gramzow to auction off his two oxen.’

II

It’s a little before eleven. It’s still morning, and the two revenue workers have shaken hands on the road to Gramzow.

The Krug at Gramzow is full to the rafters. All the tables are occupied. The farmers are sitting over beer and grog, and schnapps glasses are in evidence too. But it’s almost silent in the public bar, you hardly hear a word spoken.