The farmer's tale

摘要

BY 1927 PEOPLE began to descend on North-Tammsaare, a farm deep in the Estonian countryside. They asked the farmer, August Hansen, to show them the spot where Juss hanged himself, or where Kroot had given birth. Hansen was surprised, and sometimes annoyed: Juss and Kroot did not exist. They were characters from the fictional farm of Vargamae who appeared in the first volume of a five-part novel, "Truth and Justice", published the previous year by Hansen's younger brother, Anton. (The author adopted the name of the real farm as his pseudonym, becoming A.H.Tammsaare.)