Narrates the village events as a schoolteacher in Protestant Eichwald from 1913 to 1914. He befriends Eva, the baron's nanny, and proposes marriage, which her father reluctantly accepts after a one-year delay. As unexplained violent incidents escalate, he suspects the pastor's children and students are responsible. He confronts the pastor, who threatens him with jail. The schoolteacher is eventually drafted into World War I and leaves the village permanently.