"Anything that he has a right to," she says, "fling it out to him as you would a bone to a dog, and—"
Treine has time to recollect all this, because it is some minutes before Yössele manages to steal on tiptoe past all the beds. Every step he takes echoes at her heart, but as to going out to meet him—not for any money. There—he nearly fell! Now he is just outside the partition walls. She breathes again.
"Good evening!" he says in a low voice, with downcast eyes.
"A good year to you!" she answers lower still. Then: "Are you hungry?" she asks.
"Are you? Wait."
He slips out between the partitions and returns with washed and dripping hands.
She gives him a towel.
On a corner of the table there is some bread and some salt and the now uncovered soup.
He sits down on his bed, on the top of all the bed-clothes, she on hers, with the onions.
They eat slowly, talking with their eyes—what about, do you think?—and with their lips about the way to earn a living.