'And you sold them the land?'
'God and my dead wife saved me from doing that. She got up from her deathbed and laid a curse upon me if I should sell the land. I would rather die than sell it, but all the same,' he hung his head, 'the Germans will pay me out.'
'I don't think they can do you much harm.'
'If the Germans leave,' continued the peasant, 'I shall be up against old Gryb, and he will do me as much harm as the Germans, or more.'
'I am a good shepherd!' the priest reflected bitterly. 'My sheep are fighting each other like wolves, go to the Jews for advice, are persecuted by the Germans, and I am going to entertainments!'
He got up. 'Stay here, my brother,' he said, 'I will go to the village.'
Slimak kissed his feet and accompanied him to the sledge.
'Drive across to the village,' he directed his coachman.
'To the village?' The coachman's face, which was so chubby that it looked as if it had been stung by bees, was comic in its astonishment:
'I thought we were going…'