1. Village News

Everyone got up and followed Fritz. Hans, sighing heavily and shuffling his feet, followed them, climbing the damp, worn steps of the spiral staircase in the semi-darkness.

In the room on the second floor lay all sorts of rubbish, covered with dust and debris from crumbling plaster. The wind blew through the broken glass windows. The light spooked a few bats, and they scuttled against the walls, blowing away dust and cobwebs. Fritz carefully inspected every corner, stirred up the debris with heavy fishing boots, then illuminated the walls and said:

“Look at those cracks!”

But he didn’t find anything suspicious.

“Let’s go to the third floor.”

“There’s nothing there,” said Hans. But Fritz, not listening to him, was already climbing into the upper room.

Here the wind pierced through, penetrating not only through the open hollows of the windows but also through the huge cracks.

“You seem to be mistaken, Ludwig,” said Fritz quietly.

“We’ll see,” Ludwig answered loudly and, getting angry, pushed Fritz. “Bring the lantern here. What is it?”

“It doesn’t look like a net,” said Fritz loudly, no longer considering it necessary to hide the purpose of the arrival. The lantern illuminated the shelf and the bowler hat standing on it, covered with a plank.

Fritz lifted the plank and peered into the bowler hat. There was some kind of gelatinous liquid that looked like a frogspawn.

“It’s some sour stuff, Ludwig. I told you that you were wrong.”

Ludwig was already angry with himself that he started this whole story and looked like a fool. To delay the moment of his shame, he pulled Hans out of a dark corner and shouted rudely at him:

“What are you keeping in this pot?”

To everyone’s surprise, Ludwig’s question made Hans extremely embarrassed. The old man’s lower jaw trembled from the abundance of emotion. He whispered a few words incoherently and fell silent. This aroused interest in the contents of the pot among the rest of the fishermen.

“Why don’t you answer?” Ludwig didn’t hesitate. “Do you know where you’ll end up for doing something like this?” he fantasized, inspired by Hans’ embarrassment.

“Don’t ask, I beg you,” Hans said in a low voice. “There is no crime here, but I gave my word …”