During the night, at about the hour when the unhappy Maciek was drawing his last breath in the ravines, Slimakowa was seized with violent fits of shivering. Slimak covered her with his sheepskin and it passed off. She got up in the morning, and although she complained of pains, she went about her work. Slimak was depressed. Towards evening a sledge stopped at the gate and the innkeeper Josel entered with a strange expression on his face. Slimak's conscience pricked him. 'The Lord be praised,' said Josel. 'In Eternity.' A silence ensued. 'You have nothing to ask?' said the Jew. 'What should I have to ask?' Slimak looked into his eyes and involuntarily grew pale. 'To-morrow,' Josel said slowly, 'to-morrow Jendrek's trial is coming on for violence to Hermann.' 'They'll do nothing to him.' 'I expect he will have to sit in jail for a bit.' 'Then let him sit, it will cure him of fighting.' Again silence fell. The Jew shook his head; Slimak's alarm grew. He screwed up his courage at last and asked: 'What else?' 'What's the use of making many words?' said the Jew, holding up his hands, 'Maciek and the child have been frozen to death.' Slimak sprang to his feet and looked for something to throw at the Jew, but staggered and held on to the wall. A hot wave rushed over him, his legs shook. Then he wondered why he should have been seized with fear like this. 'Where...when?' 'In the ravines close to the railway line.' 'But when?' 'You know quite well that it was yesterday when you drove them out.' Slimak's anger was rising. 'As I live! the Jew is a liar! Frozen to death? What did he go to the ravines for? are there no cottages in the world?' The innkeeper shrugged his shoulders and got up. 'You can believe it or not, it's all the same to me, but I myself saw them being driven to the police-station.' 'Ah well! What harm can they do to me, because Maciek has been frozen?' 'Perhaps men can't do you harm, but, man, before God! or don't you believe in God?' the Jew asked from the other side of the door, his burning eyes fixed on Slimak. The peasant stood still and listened to his heavy tread down to the gate and to the sound of his departing sledge. He shook himself, turned round and met Jendrek's eyes looking fixedly at him from the far corner. 'Why should I be to blame?' he muttered. Suddenly an annual sermon, preached by an old priest, flashed through his mind; he seemed to hear the peculiar cadence of his voice as he said: 'I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat.... I was a stranger and ye took me not in.' 'By God, the Jew is lying,' he exclaimed. These words seemed to break the spell; he felt sure Maciek and the child were alive, and he almost went out to call them in to supper. 'A low Jew, that Josel,' he said to his wife, while he covered her again with the sheepskin, when her shivering-fits returned. Nothing should induce him to believe that story. Next day the village Soltys drove up with the summons for Jendrek.