Jendrek slowly walked home, puzzled and sad. When he returned to the cottage, he found Stasiek lying ill. He told his father what Gryb had said. 'He's an old fool,' replied Slimak. 'What! should a man stand like a beast when others are praying, even if they are Swabians?' 'But their praying has bewitched Stasiek.' Slimak looked gloomy. 'Why should it have been their prayers? Stasiek is easily upset. Let a woman but sing in the fields and he'll begin to shake all over.' The matter ended there. Jendrek tried to busy himself about the cottage, but he felt stifled indoors. He roamed about in the ravines, stood on the hill and watched the Germans, or forced his way through brambles. Wherever he went, the image of the schoolmaster's daughter went with him; he saw her tanned face, grey eyes, and graceful movements. Sometimes her powerful, entrancing voice seemed to come to him as from a depth. 'Has she cast a spell over me?' he whispered, frightened, and continued to think of her. CHAPTER VIII Slimak had never been so well off as he was that spring; money was flowing into his chest while he took his leisure and looked around him at all the new things. Formerly, after a heavy day, he had thrown himself on his bed and had scarcely fallen asleep like a stone when his wife would pull the cover off him, crying: 'Get up, Josef; it is morning.' 'How can it be morning?' he thought; 'I've only just lain down.' All the same he had to gather his bones together, when each one individually held to the bed; willy-nilly he had to get up. So hard was the resolution sometimes, that he even thought with pleasure of the eternal sleep, when his wife would no longer stand over him and urge: 'Get up, wash...you'll be late; they'll take it off your wages.' Then he would dress, and drag the equally tired horses out of the stable, so overcome with sleep that he would pause on the threshold and mutter, 'I shall stay at home!' But he was afraid of his wife, and he also knew very well that he could not make both ends meet at the gospodarstwo without his wages. Now all that was different. He slept as long as he liked. Sometimes his wife pulled him by the leg from habit and said: 'Get up, Josef.' But, opening only one eye, lest sleep should run away from him, he would growl: 'Leave me alone!' and sleep, maybe, till the church bell rang for Mass at seven o'clock. There was really nothing to get up for now. Maciek had long ago finished the spring-work in the fields; the Jews had left the village, carrying their business farther afield, following the new railway line now under construction, and no one sent for him from the manor--for there was no manor. He smoked, strolled about for days together in the yard, or looked at the abundantly sprouting corn. His favourite pastime, however, was to watch the Germans, whose habitations were shooting up like mushrooms.