'That's what you've come here for, to do your dying here, and I am to pay for your funeral and buy you a hooded cloak... that's what he thinks. I don't think! You won't live to see me do it! If your Julina is so sweet, you'd better make haste and go to her. Was it I who was supposed to look after you in your dotage? She is the pet, and if you think...' She did not finish, for she heard the tinkling of the bell, and the priest entered with the sacrament. Antkowa bowed down to his feet, wiping tears of rage from her eyes, and after she had poured the holy water into a chipped basin and put the asperges-brush beside it, she went out into the passage, where a few people who had come with the priest were waiting already. 'Christ be praised.' 'In Eternity.' 'What is it?' 'Oh nothing! Only that he's come here to give up... with us, whom he has wronged. And now he won't give up. Oh dear me... poor me!' She began to cry. 'That's true! He will have to rot, and you will have to live,' they all answered in unison and nodded their heads. 'One's own father,' she began again. '... Have we, Antek and I, not taken care of him, worked for him, sweated for him, just as much as they? Not a single egg would I sell, not half a pound of butter, but put it all down his throat; the little drop of milk I have taken away from the baby and given it to him, because he was an old man and my father... and now he goes and gives it all to Tomek. Fifteen acres of land, the cottage, the cows, the pigs, the calf, and the farm-carts and all the furniture... is that nothing? Oh, pity me! There's no justice in this world, none... Oh, oh!' She leant against the wall, sobbing loudly. 'Don't cry, neighbour, don't cry. God is full of mercy, but not always towards the poor. He will reward you some day.' 'Idiot, what's the good of talking like that?' interrupted the speaker's husband. 'What's wrong is wrong. The old man will go, and poverty will stay.' 'It's hard to make an ox move when he won't lift up his feet,' another man said thoughtfully. 'Eh... You can get used to everything in time, even to hell,' murmured a third, and spat from between his teeth. The little group relapsed into silence. The wind rattled the door and blew snow through the crevices on to the floor. The peasants stood thoughtfully, with bared heads, and stamped their feet to get warm. The women, with their hands under their cotton aprons, and huddled together, looked with patient resigned faces towards the door of the living-room.