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Zalia, the procession's going up the wall there.... Why don't you look?... It's so beautiful!... And I, I'm the only ugly one in it...." "He's wandering," whispered Treze. "And what's that chap doing here, Zalia?" "It's I, Zeen, I: Warten the spectacle-man." His eyes fell to again and his cheeks again blew the breath through the little slit of his mouth. It rattled; and the fever rose.
"What a sad sick man," said Stanse, softly. Mite wanted to give him some food, eggs: it might be faintness. Treze wanted to bring him round with gin: her husband had once.... "Is there any, for the night?..." asked Stanse. "There's a whole bottle over there, in the cupboard."
"I'll tell you what: Fietje shall run home and fetch something, won't you, Fietje? And say that mother is going to stay here because Zeen is dying." Fietje went off. The coffee was ready and when they had gulped down their first bowl, they went to have another look in the room where the sick man lay. Zeen was worse. "We must sit up with him," said Stanse. "For sure," said Treze.
Zeen's chest rose and fell and his throat rattled painfully; his eyes stood gazing dimly at the rafters of the ceiling; his thin lips were pale and his face turned blue with the pain; he no longer looked like a living thing. Virginie read very slowly, with a dismal, drawling voice, through her nose, while Treze held Zeen's weak fingers closed round the candle. It was still as death.
"I'm here," said Zalia, "I've done, I'm coming at once." They stood talking a bit outside in the moonlight and then went in. "Perhaps my man'll come on," said Treze. "A man is better than three women in illness; and Virginie's coming too: I've been to tell her." "Well, well," said Barbara, "who'd ever have thought it of Zeen!" "Yes, friends, and never been ill in his life; and he turned seventy."
"I'll run home and fetch some, Zalia." "Yes, Mite, do." And Mite went off. "Well, Zeen, no better yet?" Zeen did not answer. She took a pail of water and a cloth, cleaned away the mess from beside the bed and then went back to peel her potatoes. Mite came back with the English salt. Treze Wizeur and Stanse Zegers, who had heard the news, also came to see how Zeen was getting on.
"Hurry, hurry, Virginie: he's almost stopped breathing!" The cat jumped between Zalia and Treze on to the bed and went making dough with its front paws on the clothes; it looked surprised at all those people and purred softly. Warten drove it away with his cap. "Receive, O Lord, Thy servant Zeen into the place of salvation which he hopes to obtain through Thy mercy." "Amen," they all answered.
"In France, the two oldest ... and there's Miel, the soldier ... it's in their letters, behind the glass." "Give 'em to me," said Treze. "I'll make my boy write to-morrow, before he goes to school." They were going off. "And I, who, with this all, don't know where I'm to sleep," said Warten. "My old roost, over the goat-house: you'll be wanting that to-night, Zalia?" Zalia wavered.
"Get the blessed candle; we must pray, good people," said Virginie; and she put on her spectacles and went and stood with her book under the light. The women knelt on low chairs or on the floor. Warten stood with his elbows leaning on the rail of the bed, at Zeen's head. Treze took the blessed candle out of its paper covering and lit it at the lamp.
Mite knew of other remedies, Stanse knew of some too and Treze of many more: they asked Zeen questions and babbled to him, made him put out his tongue and felt his pulse, cried out at his gasping for breath and his pale colour and his dilated pupils and his burning fever. Zeen did not stir and lay looking at the ceiling. When he was tired of the noise, he said: "Leave me alone."