Stijn Streuvels’ Life and Death in the Ast (1926) is one of the classics of Dutch literature. The novella is a character study of village life, and remains a master count about the perishable life.
Three workers are locked up in a dry oven for chicory roots. While outside the rain and wind, they have to sit down in the ast and keep the fire going. When a wanderer steps in looking for a hiding place for the night, it makes the workers think about the meaning of existence. The awareness grows that their lives are drawn by loneliness and disappointments, by injustice and poverty. But talking about it openly does not work.