He seemed totally unconscious, or lost in rapt listening to the twittering swallows, building their nests under his thatch, or the brustling of the leaves against the wall outside. “Matthias!” Klemba said, shaking him slightly. The sick man started, his eyelids quivered, he looked round at them. “Do ye hear?—This is Klemba, this Balcerek, your companions: surely ye know us!” They waited a little, gazing into his eyes. “Boys!” he cried suddenly, in a thundering voice. “See me here alone! To the rescue! Smite them, those sons of dogs! smite them!” He raised his arms as to ward off a blow, and fell back on his bed. At the cry, Yuzka rushed in, and put fresh moist bandages on his head. And now, once more, he lay quite motionless: in his wide-open eyes there gleamed an expression of intense fear. They went away, distressed and disheartened. “Why,” said Klemba, “he is no longer a living man ... he’s a corpse!” Vitek’s stork was stalking about the orchard; the wind now and then swept the branches into the open windows to shade them. Back they went, plunged in sad silent thought, as if they had been to visit a grave. “We must all come to this!” Klemba said at last. “Truly,” sighed the other. “He has perished, and others gain thereby.” “‘A goat dies once, and then—never again!’” “We too shall follow him shortly.” And they looked with hardening eyes at the world around; at the waving corn; at the forest, clear-cut and plain in the distance; at the green-growing fields, and at the bright warm day of springtide: and their spirits settled down in a stony resignation to the will of God. “No; man cannot shun what is to be.” And so they parted. Others, too, both on that day and afterwards, came to visit the dying man: but he recognized no one, and at last they came no longer. The priest had said: “All he needs is prayers for a speedy departure.” And as everyone was full of his own cares and troubles, they naturally forgot him, or spoke of him as of one dead. Who was there, indeed, to take thought of him? There were even days when he remained without a drop of water, and might have died of starvation, but for the kind heart of Vitek, who would snatch up anything he could get and take it to “Master”; and he would sometimes milk the cows in secret, and bring him to drink. He was indeed filled with attention and respect for the sufferer, and with disquietude also: which made him at last question Pete: “Is’t true that whosoever dies without confession must go to hell?” “Most true. Why, the priest tells us so in church ever so often.” “Then ... Master shall also go to hell?” And he crossed himself in dismay. “He’s a man like any other!” “What? Master a man like any other?” “You are as senseless as a cabbage-head!” said Pete, growing angry; for he saw that Vitek did not believe him.... And thus did the days go by at Boryna’s cabin.