Now and then the rascally Seldwylians played a trick on the two deadly enemies which for its peculiar raciness was specially relished by them, the people of Seldwyla, that is. They would sell the two peasants sections of the same lottery tickets, so that Manz as well as Marti would build their hopes of a rich strike on precisely the same fallacious foundation, and also in the end would feel the same despondency from the same source. Half their time the two now spent in town, and there each had his headquarters in a miserable tavern. There they would indulge in foolish bragging and bluster, would drink too much and play the Lord Bountiful to loafers that would flatter the simpletons to the top of their bent, and all the while the dark doubt would assail them that they who in order not to be reckoned dunces had gone to law about a trifling object, had now really become just that and furthermore, were so reckoned by general consent. The other half of the time they spent at home, morose and incapable of steady work or sober reflection. Habitually neglecting their farm labor, at times they tried to make up for that by undue haste, overworking their help and thus soon unable to retain any respectable men in their employ. Thus things went from bad to worse little by little, and within less than ten years both of them were overburdened with debts, and stood like storks with one leg upon their farms, so that the slightest change might blow them over. But no matter how else they fared, the hatred between them grew more intense every day, since each looked upon the other as the cause of his misfortune, as his archenemy, as his foe without rhyme or reason, as the one being in the world whom the devil purposely had invented to ruin him. They spat out before each other when they saw the adversary approaching from afar. Nobody belonging to them was permitted to speak to wife, child or servants of the other, on pain of instant brutal punishment. Their wives behaved differently under these circumstances. Marti's wife, who came of good family and was of a fine disposition, did not long survive the rapid downfall of her house and family, sorrowed silently and died before her little daughter was fourteen. The wife of Manz, on the other hand, altered her whole character. Only for the worse, of course. And to do that all she needed to do was to aggravate some of her natural defects, let them go on, so to speak, without bridling them at all. Her passion for tidbits and sweets became boundless; her love of gossip deteriorated into a veritable craze, and she soon became unable to tell the truth about anything or anybody. She habitually spoke the very contrary of what was in her thoughts, cheated and deceived her own husband, and found keen pleasure in getting everybody by the ears. Her original frankness and her harmless delight in satisfying her feminine curiosity turned into evil intrigue and the inclination to make mischief between neighbors and friends.