“Wait a bit, child! Why do you go on slapping the man’s neck without even stopping to ask him a question? Can’t you see that the lad’s a little bit off his head? Tell me, neighbour, where did you come from so suddenly, and what do you mean by saying: Thank God I am in your cottage, when you know you oughtn’t to be here at all?”
The miller rubbed his eyes and said:
“Tell me the honest truth, Auntie, am I asleep? Am I still alive? Has one night or one year passed since yesterday evening? And did I come here from the mill or did I drop from the sky?”
“Tut, tut, man! Cross yourself with your left hand! What nonsense you’re talking. You must have been dreaming!”
“I don’t know, good mother, I don’t know. I can’t make head or tail of it myself.”
He was about to sit down on a bench, when he caught sight through the window of Yankel the inn-keeper, crawling along with a huge bundle on his back. The miller jumped up, pointed toward the window, and asked the two women:
“Who is that walking along there?”
“Why, that’s our Yankel!”
“And what is he carrying?”
“A bundle from the city.”