She also died before old age had claimed her, like her mother in consequence of a chill. That was when her husband, in one of the campaigns for the possession of Milan, had perished and was buried in the cemetery next a small chapel in Lombardy. Kuengolt hastened there, intending to have a monument in his honor erected; but indeed she spent two long nights at his tomb, with a ceaseless rainstorm raging, thus contracting a fever that carried her off within a couple of days, and she thus lies next to her husband in Italian soil. ROMEO AND JULIET OF THE VILLAGE ROMEO AND JULIET OF THE VILLAGE Near the fine river which flows along half an hour's distance from Seldwyla, rises in a long stretch a headland which finally, itself carefully cultivated, is lost in the fertile plain. Some distance away at the foot of this rise there lies a village, to which belong many large farms, and across the hillock itself there were, years ago, three splendid holdings, like unto as many giant ribbons, side by side. One sunny September morning two peasants were plowing on two of these vast fields, the two which stretched along the middle one. The middle one itself seemed to have lain fallow and waste for a long, long time, for it was thickly covered with stones, bowlders and tall weeds, and a multitude of winged insects were humming around and over it. The two peasants who on both sides of this huge wilderness were following their plows, were big, bony men of near forty, and at the first glance one could tell them as men of substance and well-regulated circumstances. They wore short breeches made of strong canvas, and every fold in these garments seemed to be carved out of rock. When they hit against some obstacle with their plow their coarse shirt sleeves would tremble slightly, while the closely shaved faces continued to look steadfastly into the sunlight ahead. Tranquilly they would go on accurately measuring the width of the furrow, and now and then looking around them if some unusual noise reached their ears. They would then peer attentively in the direction indicated, while all about them the country spread out measureless and peaceful. Sedately and with a certain unconscious grace they would set one foot before the other, slowly advancing, and neither of them ever spoke a word unless it was to briefly instruct the hired man who was leading the horses. Thus they resembled each other strongly from a distance; for they fitly represented the peculiar type of people of the district, and at first sight one might have distinguished them from each other only by this one fact that he on the one side wore the peaked fold of his white cap in front and the other had it hanging down his neck. But even this kept changing, since they were plowing in opposite directions; for when they arrived at the end of the new furrow up on high, and thus passed each other, the one who now strode against the strong east wind had his cap