For several years past he had not seen this spot so closely. For even while he still dwelt in the village itself he had been forbidden to approach the Marti farm, avoiding meeting the family with whom his father lived on terms of enmity. Therefore he was now full of wonder at what, just the same, he had had ample opportunity to observe in the case of his own father's property. Amazedly he stared at this once prosperous and well-cultivated farm now turned into a waste. For Marti had had one section after another of his property sequestrated by orders of the court, and now all that was left was the dwelling house itself and the space around it, with a bit of vegetable garden and a small field up above the river, which latter Marti had for some time been defending in a last desperate struggle with the judicial power. There was, it is true, no longer any question of a rational cultivation of the soil which once had borne so plentifully and where the wheat had waved like a golden sea toward harvest time. Instead of that now there was a mixed crop sprouting: rye, turnips, wheat and potatoes, with some other "garden truck" intermingling, all from seed that had come from paper packages left over or purchased in small quantities at random, so that the whole cultivated space looked like a negligently tended vegetable bed, in which cabbage, parsley and turnips predominated. It was plainly to be seen that the owner of it, too lazy or indifferent to do his farmer's work properly, had mainly had in mind to raise such things as would enable him to live from day to day. Here a handful of carrots had been torn out, there a mess of cabbage or potatoes, and the rest had fared on for good or ill, and much of it lay rotting on the ground. Everybody, too, had been in the habit of treading around and in it all, just as he listed, and the one broad field now presented nearly the desolate appearance of the once ownerless field whence had grown all the mischief that had wrought havoc and brought the two neighbors of old down so low. About the house itself there was no visible sign at all of farm work. The stable stood vacant, its door hung loosely from the broken staples, and innumerable spider's webs, grown thick and large during the summer, were shimmering in the sunshine. Against the broad door of a barn, where once were housed the fruits of the field, hung untidy fishermen's nets and other sporting apparatus, in grim token of abandoned farming. In the farmyard was to be seen not a single chicken, pigeon or turkey, no dog or cat. The well only was the sole live thing. But even its clear water no longer flowed in a regular gush through the spout, but trickled through the broken tube, wasting itself on the ground and forming dark pools on the soggy earth, a perfect symbol of neglect. For while it would not have taken much time or trouble to mend the broken tube, now Vreni was forced to use the water