Visitation

THE GARDENER

IN THE SPRING, using a plan sketched out by the householder, an apiary for twelve colonies is set up facing south on the newly acquired land right next to the fruit trees, both to increase the yield of the trees and to provide honey as an additional benefit. Next to the room with the beekeeping equipment is a room for extracting the honey, and since the gardener, who has an excellent grasp of apiculture, will henceforth be spending all his time not devoted to the upkeep of the garden tending the bees, he soon installs a makeshift bed in the extractor room and finally, with the householder’s permission, moves in altogether.

The Polish forced laborers in the village say that the potato beetles, which have long since crossed the Oder, are now making their way through Poland. In summer the gardener waters the flowerbed twice a day along with the cypress tree on the side of the house facing the sandy road, and he also waters the roses on the terrace facing the lake, as well as the forsythia bushes, the lilac and the rhododendrons along the edge of the big meadow: once early in the morning, and once at dusk. He begins to make a habit of smoking cigars so the smoke will keep the bees away when he sits on the threshold of the apiary to rest. In fall he rakes up the leaves beneath the big oak tree and burns them, he saws the dry branches from the pine trees, saws them up, splits the pieces and stacks the logs in the woodshed.