The innkeeper shrugged his shoulders and got up.
'You can believe it or not, it's all the same to me, but I myself saw them being driven to the police-station.'
'Ah well! What harm can they do to me, because Maciek has been frozen?'
'Perhaps men can't do you harm, but, man, before God! or don't you believe in God?' the Jew asked from the other side of the door, his burning eyes fixed on Slimak.
The peasant stood still and listened to his heavy tread down to the gate and to the sound of his departing sledge. He shook himself, turned round and met Jendrek's eyes looking fixedly at him from the far corner.
'Why should I be to blame?' he muttered. Suddenly an annual sermon, preached by an old priest, flashed through his mind; he seemed to hear the peculiar cadence of his voice as he said: 'I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat…. I was a stranger and ye took me not in.'
'By God, the Jew is lying,' he exclaimed. These words seemed to break the spell; he felt sure Maciek and the child were alive, and he almost went out to call them in to supper.
'A low Jew, that Josel,' he said to his wife, while he covered her again with the sheepskin, when her shivering-fits returned. Nothing should induce him to believe that story.
Next day the village Soltys drove up with the summons for Jendrek.
'His trial does not come on till to-morrow,' he said, 'but as I was driving that way, I thought he might as well come with me.'