Black Harvest

1926. The Prologue begins: The big square was red with a stormy afternoon sunlight. It had been raining all the morning, and the hollows in the uneven cobbles were full of steel-bright patches of water. People came out of their shops and their houses with a tentative air. The innkeeper of the Gasthaus zum Alten Mann let down his awning and set out a marble-topped table and stood beside it, his green apron stretched over his round stomach, as though he were saying: Now I've come out, good people, you can take it from me we shall have fine weather. But his round pink face was serious and even anxious. He didn't seem quite sure-He waited, ready to hurry his table in again.