Fritz pushed Slimak into the kitchen, where one of the farm-hands was asleep already. He felt stupefied; whether it was with the beer or with Knap's noisy conversation, he could not tell. He sat down on his plank bed and felt cheerful. The noise of conversation in German reached him from the adjoining room; then the Hamers left the house. Miller Knap stamped about the room for a while; presently his thick voice repeated the Lord's prayer while he was pulling off his boots and throwing them into a corner: 'Amen amen,' he concluded, and flung himself heavily upon the bed; a few moments later noises as if he were being throttled and murdered proclaimed that he was asleep.
The moon was throwing a feeble light through the small squares of the window.
Between waking and sleeping Slimak continued to meditate: 'Why shouldn't I sell? It's better to buy fifteen acres of land elsewhere, than to stay and have Jasiek Gryb as a neighbour. The sooner I sell, the better.' He got up as if he wished to settle the matter at once, laughed quietly to himself and felt more and more intoxicated.
Then he saw a human shadow outlined against the window pane; someone was trying to look into the room. The peasant approached the window and became sober. He ran into the passage and pulled the door open with trembling hands. Frosty air fanned his face. His wife was standing outside, still trying to look through the window.
'Jagna, for God's sake, what are you doing here? Who dressed you?'
'I dressed myself, but I couldn't manage my boots, they are quite crooked. Come home,' she said, drawing him by the hand.
'Where, home? Are you so ill that you don't know our home is burnt down? Where will you go on a bitter night like this?'
Hamer's mastiffs were beginning to growl. Slimakowa hung on her husband's arm. 'Come home, come home,' she urged stubbornly, 'I will not die in a strange house, I am a gospodyni, I will not stay here with the Swabians. The priests would not even sprinkle holy water on my coffin.'
She pulled him and he went; the dogs went after them for a while snapping at their clothes; they made straight for the frozen river, so as to reach their own nest the sooner. On the riverbank they stopped for a moment, the tired woman was out of breath.
'You have let yourself be tempted by the Germans to sell them your land! You think I don't know. Perhaps you will say it is not true?' she cried, looking wildly into his eyes. He hung his head.