Her face has reddened slightly, ice-grey bunches of hair are plastered over her head and hanging down into her face. He thinks: The cognac bottle is almost empty. When I sent Wenk out, he reeked of drink. Now he’s even stealing it from his drunk proprietress. I’ll get him, see if I don’t.

Facing the woman again: I’ll make her a coffee, hot and strong, for her to drink when she wakes up. I’ll ring for Grete.

He looks at the bell push by the door, and then at the blank paper in front of him on the desk. What good will coffee do? None at all.

He twiddles with the buttons on the radio. A voice speaks up: ‘Achtung! Achtung! Achtung! This is the Social Democratic Press service.’

Ah, fuck it! I’ll write my column.

He sits down, has a little think, and writes:

Last night, a small circus by the name of Monte opened its tents on our municipal playground, and gave its first performance. The turns were not outstanding in any way, in fact they were barely mediocre. After the shows that our town was privileged to witness lately from the Circus Kreno and the Circus Stern, the items on the Monte bill of fare were pretty wretched, at best good enough to please children.

He reads it back to himself. That’ll do for the moment, he thinks. The trainee wanders in. ‘I want this set up right away, Fritz. And tell the maker-up to set it as local lead. I’m going to the cop shop now, and then the local assizes. If there’s anything to come, I’ll phone. All right.—Oh, and tell Grete to make Frau Schabbelt a cup of coffee.’

The boy wanders out. Stuff looks at the sleeping woman, and then at the cognac bottle. He picks it up, and drinks it dry. He shudders.

I’ll go out on the piss tonight. A proper bender, he thinks. Intoxicate myself, get far away, forget. The most swinish profession in the world: local editor of a provincial newspaper.

He looks glumly through his pince-nez and pushes off. First the police, then the assizes.

PART I

The Farmers

1

An Order of Attachment in the Country

I

At Haselhorst Station two men climb out of the train that goes from Altholm to Stolpe. Both are wearing town clothes, but are carrying raincoats over their arms and have knotty canes in their hands. One of them is dour-looking and in his forties, while his scrawny twenty-year-old companion looks round alertly in all directions. Everything seems to interest him.

They follow the main street through Haselhorst. The roofs of the farmhouses peep through the green everywhere, some reed, some thatch, some tile, some tin. Every farm is its own world, ringed with trees, and careful to turn its narrow side to the main road.

They leave Haselhorst behind them and walk along the rowan-lined avenue towards Gramzow. There are cattle standing at pasture in the meadows, red and white or black and white, idly looking round at the wanderers, slowly chewing.

‘It’s nice to get out of the office once in a while,’ says the young man.

‘There was a time I thought that as well,’ replies the older one.

‘Nothing but figures all the time, it’s too much.’

‘Figures are easier to deal with than people.