Red earth- Part 4: Bruno and Pauline (1893 - 1894)

After a two-year stint in the army, Bruno returns to the miner’s housing development. Pauline and Erna are busy washing clothes at the well when Bruno comes walking down the street. Bruno has become a man –there is no doubt about that now- and Pauline has become a young woman. They are both aware of this and a little embarrassed. Bruno goes home with Pauline. Old Friedrich Boetzkes offers Bruno lodging: all he has to pay for is food and drink.When Pauline and Bruno are alone, she looks at him for a long moment. “I waited for you”, she says.Bruno visits Erna, who is on her way to Mass. She tells him that she had a child that died soon after birth. “But it had Otto’s eyes”, she adds. Then she leaves him standing there.Bruno and Pauline want to get married. Pauline is Catholic and the two of them cannot agree on what kind of wedding it should be. Finally, they decide to go to the chaplain and seek his advice.Flanked by a mounted police escort, a procession of carriages rolls by them. Seated in the first carriage is Rewandowski; next to him radiant in her wedding gown, Sylvia. Käthe whispers to Pauline, “she’s beautiful”.