The Deserter Almost every week there d be new frightening stories of captured deserters, who, no matter how cunningly they had disguised themselves as sailors or tradesmen or even women, or hidden themselves in tuns or barrels or whatever, had been caught just the same. Then we had to watch while they were made to run the gaunt- let, eight times or more, through a corridor of two hundred men, until they r collapsed, unable to draw another breath--only to have to go through it again the next day. ~, From The Life Story of the Poor Man of Tockenburg, Zurich, x789 The cherry trees bloomed for the second time that year, and it seemed the summer would never end. The barns could hardly hold the harvest, but the earth seemed far from tired; the winter wheat grew so fast the farmers began to yearn for an early frost, to bring this strange miracle to an end. The sheer abundance of the year 1775 made everyone uneasy. The sky seemed too blue, the sun too warm, and it was more than people could accept. They weren t used to being given anything at all; they knew that everything they had--property, freedom, life--was theirs only on loan, and could be taken away at any time, without warning. It was a fact they could hardly forget, living as they did at the foot of a fortress that was both barracks and prison in one. r r: c r,
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