“What did you pick the cherry branches for?”

“Surely I can pick cherry blossom if I want to!” he replied evasively⁠—and after a while: “I have a big orchard with cherry trees at home. When they are in blossom, from the hay loft they look like one single sheet, so white. It is just the time.”

“Perhaps you will get leave soon. You may even be sent back as a farmer.”

He nodded but he was far away. When these peasants are excited they have a curious expression, a mixture of cow and yearning god, half stupid and half rapt. In order to turn him away from his thoughts I asked him for a piece of bread. He gave it to me without a murmur. That was suspicious, for he is usually tightfisted. So I stayed awake. Nothing happened; in the morning he was as usual.