Through

Caspar, a small cattle-farmer in the region, built his farm himself using materials from the wood-merchant in the village. He laboured alone and completed it some years ago; after which he moved his wife and daughter in as soon as he could send for them. The farmhouse rested comfortably in a small valley, seeming to reach out to its surroundings via its wide encircling porch, on which the family would sit in the evening to contemplate the various tracks which radiated to various corners of the region.  

Caspar however, did not rest comfortably. He had never been a man at ease. Despite the comforts of life (which he provided) the two women of the house mocked him somewhat; they sometimes pretended not to hear his questions; and by small ways and means he had the impression that they valued him little. The two would spend a lot of time together, laughing secretly and bending a head to the other's words. Soon, through the farmhouse window, he would spy his wife talking to a neighbouring farmer, a large oaf with an uncomprehending forehead. The man would stand on his side of a fence which was set boldly near to the house, almost touching the window in fact, and he would entertain Caspar's wife who sat on the top bar, alternately swinging her legs and laughing in an unconcerned manner. Caspar could not clearly divine the intentions of the two and quickly became intensely irritated.

At last she would find it in herself to drag her swinging legs away from him and return to the house. And so, one day Caspar positioned himself in front of her as she entered the front-door. He held his hands up in front of her face. "Wait" he said, "I want you to be frank with people. Open with people. Maybe for the first time in your life. Why all this concealment? Are you attracted to this farmer of yours? It is allowed you know! People leave their husbands all the time. There is no 'unwritten law' that says you must never do that. I am not allowed to stop you - you do know that don't you? Why sometimes we men, also, abandon our wives (though often the phrase 'free-up' our wives more suits the case) and so it is all perfectly usual and common. Common! Perhaps that's it; perhaps that's what is wrong with you? You don't wish to be thought doing anything 'common'? You are above all these 'common' things? Please don't feel so. Look! I ask you again - are you attracted to this swaggering farmer of yours on the other side of the fence? Then fine! Say it - that's all we men ask. After which, my love, I can decide what I myself am to do. Once I have clear knowledge, I can govern myself again. No! No more of that retort you always give me. No more of your saying 'it's nobody's business but my own .  .  . ' No more of that ugly female trickery - and a peculiarly female type of ugliness this 'nobody's business' certainly is! Can you not see, really not see, the deviousness that lies behind it?"  

The last request was lost for he had closed his eyes to say it, and in those seconds she had taken the opportunity to hop past him and to busy herself in the kitchen. Blinking in irritation, Caspar raced after her and grabbed the still wet saucepans from her hands. "No" he said, "It's high time you let us see through that closed face of yours - put those things down now, and be frank with me. Do you really find it so very difficult to put voice to - what? A fear of other people making you feel ashamed?  Is that it? Well remember this - nothing is private my lady; you know that? It all affects somebody else .  .  ."  

His daughter's giggling interrupted his concentration. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her at the kitchen-table he'd built, sitting easily while her three suitors circled her attentively. She held the bar of the warming kitchen-stove, and so forced the suitors to circle that as well. He grabbed the elbow of his wife who was already turning away and reprimanded her: "No you don't! Turn back this way, face the front woman, and tell us all - why the self-importance?All this keeping things hidden! Does that turn everything somehow 'special' for you? To wrap secrecy round a routine moving of affections; does that somehow, what? - give drama to your life? Does it make you feel more important? Or more alive? Well, my dear, perhaps a little frankness will force you to grow-up at last .  .  . ?" He wandered to the side a little, absorbed with his thoughts and pain. Then he added as if to himself "It is, after all, only the very ordinary feelings of a very ordinary person .  .  ."

A loud guffaw from one of the suitors made him jump. The three suitors were like pets on leads now - sitting on the stone floor, they slid a little this way and that, on his daughter's almost imperceptible signs. They gazed up at her attentively - three quivering muzzles (Caspar thought) advertising their handful of attractions, be it making their individual noises or their urging her to see the worthless gift they had brought her. All the while they searched her face for clues as to her preferences amongst them. The girl (Caspar had to remind himself that this was his very own daughter) sat there silent with her arms expressionless by her sides, but prominently displaying the curves that her flattened clothing enhanced so well. Finally Caspar grew disgusted with her. He leaped over to the group and alarmed all four by calling out sharply: "Daughter! Why do you conceal who you like? What's this disgusting game then? And you young men, you suitors, have you no dignity? Why do you let yourselves be manipulated by such a tricky monkey - can't you see you're victims; even the one who wins her though it is far from clear whether anyone at all is to be chosen!" 

The girl yawned slowly and wide. Then, after finishing her yawn, she smirked briefly to her suitors and made their eyes sparkle anew. Remembering his wife, Caspar turned round abruptly, and seeing her gone, raced from the room. He returned presently in a rush and opened his mouth; then hearing a door close in the distance, he turned and sped off in pursuit calling her name. Shortly after this episode, Caspar began to modify the farmhouse. Abandoning this series of former pleasant enquiries he'd been making of his family, now he was overcome by an odd compulsion to remove every third plank in the wooden walls of the farmhouse. Everything was to be revealed. Everything. The squeal of each third plank being eased out of its position moved slowly and inexorably through the house. From one side of the house to the other, the effect on it in that season, was quite beautiful. Caspar himself could not help but admit it. The sun cast barrels of light into the rooms, thus dimming the shafts of shadow between them even more so than before. The women made fun of him while he engaged in all this work, though quite good-naturedly as was their usual fashion. They amused themselves with an ironic hide-and-seek flitting about the house trying to hide themselves sideways between the bright barrels of sunlight and holding their breath. When they weren't doing that, they tapped little messages to each other on the now part-planked walls with the toes of their shoes.  

Then one day Caspar returned from the fields and found himself usurped by his neighbouring farmer, who was already ensconced on the porch rocking himself in an unknown chair, and drawing at a freshly-filled pipe. When they noticed him, his wife and daughter stepped forward, a little subdued it is true for they fancied they could imagine his feelings at this moment. However, finding their voice pretty quickly, they got talking and turned him round and walked him to the fence and walked him along it, saying: "You're to blame of course, Caspar. You drove us out. You know you did. You can't blame us for running into the arms of another. The most important thing is this - Caspar, it is not our fault. Now, good-bye my dear and please don't think badly of us."

Darting quickly under their arms, Caspar raced to the pile of planks round the back, flung them haphazard onto an old cart which soon lurched down the rutted lane shedding most of the load as it went, at which Caspar threw up his arms and left most of them where they lay.