"Then follow her, and make another attempt."
"No," after a moment's reflection he rejoins. "Out there she might get hold of a stick, or a brick, or some such thing. However, I'LL get even with her. As a matter of fact, you wasted your time in stopping me, for she detests me like the very devil."
And he renews his wearisome boastings of his conquests; until suddenly, he stops as though he has swallowed his tongue.
All becomes quiet; everything seems to have come to a halt, and to be pressing close in sleep to the motionless earth. I too grow drowsy, and have a vision amid which my mind returns to the donations which I have received that day, and sees them swell and multiply and increase in weight until I feel their bulk pressing upon me like a tumulus of the steppes. Next, the coppery notes of a bell jar in my ears, and, struck at random intervals, go floating away into the darkness.
It is the hour of midnight.
Soon, scattered drops of rain begin to patter down upon the dry thatch of the hut and the dust in the street outside, while a cricket continues chirping as though it were hurriedly relating a tale. Also, I hear filtering forth into the darkness a softly gulped, eager whispering.
"Think," says one of the voices, "what it must mean to have to go tramping about without work, or only with work for another to do!"
The young fellow who has been so soundly thrashed replies in a dull voice:
"I know nothing of you."
"More softly, more softly!" urges the woman.