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"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.
Warten opened wide eyes, flung the box which he carried over his shoulder by a leather strap to the ground and sat down on it: "Ha! So Zeen's ill... he's not one of the youngest either." "Seventy-five." They were silent. The womenfolk drank their coffee. Warten fished out a pipe and tobacco from under his blue smock and sat looking at the rings of smoke that wound up to the ceiling.
After a while, they heard above their heads the regular, jogging drag of the sieve over the boarded ceiling and the fine meal-dust snowed down through the cracks, whirling round the lamp, and fell on Zeen's bed and on the women standing round. Zeen nodded his head. They held a bowl of milk to his mouth; two little white streaks ran down from the corners of his mouth into his shirt-collar.
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.
Treze was tired of holding Zeen's hand round the candle: she spilt a few drops of wax on the rail of the bed and stuck the candle on it. Zeen jerked himself up, put his hands under the clothes and fumbled with them; then he lay still. "He's packing up," whispered Barbara. "He's going," one of the others thought.
It was dark now.... She strode back into bed, stepping on Zeen's leg; and the corpse shook and the stomach rumbled. She held herself tucked against the wall, twisted and turned, pinched her eyes to, but did not sleep. The smell got into her nose and throat and it became very irksome, unbearable. And she got out of bed again, to open the window.
"I don't know, I've given him some Haarlem oil, he's been sick; he's complaining of pains in his side and in his stomach; he's very pale: you wouldn't know him." They went indoors. Zalia took the lamp and both passed in, between the loom and the wall by Zeen's bed. He lay staring at the ceiling and catching his breath. Mite stood looking at him. "You must give him some English salt, Zalia."
"He'll soon begin to must," said Barbara. "The weather's warm." "He's very bent: how'll they get him into the coffin?" "Crack his back." Treze looked round for a prayer-book to lay under Zeen's chin and a crucifix and rosary for his hands. Mite took a red handkerchief and bound it round his head to keep his mouth closed. Fietje was still kneeling and saying Our Fathers.
"May the Light of the World, Christ Jesus, Who is symbolized by this candle, brightly light thy eyes that thou mayest not depart this life in death everlasting. Our Father...." They softly muttered this Our Father and it remained solemnly still, with only Warten's rough grunting and Zeen's painful breathing and the goat which kept ramming its head against the wall.
She came quietly up to the bed, looked at Zeen for some time, felt his pulse and then, looking up, said, very quietly: "Zeen's going.... Has the priest been?" "The priest?... It's so far and so late and the poor soul's so old...." "What have you given him?" "Haarlem oil, English salt...." "And we put his feet in bran water." Virginie stood thinking. "Have you any linseed-meal?" she asked. "No."
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