out; but the master pretended not to hear.

When the master came out, his wife asked him as usual, "What did you say
to him, and what did he say?"

"I couldn't do anything with him," answered the master. "Uli is still in
a bad temper, for he hasn't slept off his spree yet; it would have been
better to talk to him tomorrow or in the evening, after the natural
seediness of 'the day after' had softened him up a little. Now I've
given him time to think it over, and shall wait and see what comes of
it."

Uli went out in bitter anger, as if the greatest injustice had been done
him. He flung the tools around as though everything was to go to smash
in the one day, and he bawled at the cattle until the master ached in
every bone. But the latter forced himself to be calm, merely saying
once, "Easy, easy!" With the other servants Uli had no dealings, but
scowled at them too. As the master had not reprimanded him before the
others, he did not care to inform them of his disgrace, and because he
did not make common cause with them he considered that they were on the
master's side and his enemies--a state of mind quite in accord with that
deeply truthful saying: "He that is not for me is against me." So there
was no one to put notions into his head, and he had no opportunity to
swear that the devil or what-not might take him if he stayed here an
hour after his time was up.

Little by little the wine and other spirits departed from him, and more
and more sluggish grew his limbs; the previous tension yielded to an
intolerable exhaustion, which affected not only body but mind. And as
every act of the exhausted body is hard and painful to perform, so every
past and potential act seems to the exhausted spirit, which would fain
weep over what it laughed at before; what formerly caused pleasure and
joy now brings only grief and sorrow; the things but yesterday eagerly
grasped now bring a craze that would tear the hair from its head, aye,
even the whole head from its body. When this mood envelops the soul it
is irresistible, and over all a man's thought and ideas it casts its
sickly gleam.

While Uli, as long as the effect of the wine was upon him, had been
angry with the master for his rebuke, now that its force was spent he
became angry at himself for his debauch. He recalled the twenty-three
farthings which he had gone through in one evening, and which would now
take almost a fortnight's work to earn again. He was angry at the work