The neighbor answered: 

“So!  Good luck to you!  Take care of yourself.”

To his kind remarks she answered:” 

“Thanks; the same to you.”

And she continued picking apples.

When she went back to the house, she went over to look at her father, expecting to find him dead.  But as soon as she reached the door she heard his monotonous, noisy rattle, and, thinking it a waste of time to go over to him, she began to prepare her dumplings.  She wrapped up the fruit, one by one, in a thin layer of paste, then she lined them up on the edge of the table.  When she had made forty-eight dumplings, arranged in dozens, one in front of the other, she began to think of preparing supper, and she hung her kettle over the fire to cook potatoes, for she judged it useless to heat the oven that day, as she had all the next day in which to finish the preparations.

Her husband returned at about five.  As soon as he had crossed the threshold he asked: 

“Is it over?”

She answered: 

“Not yet; he’s still gurglin’.”

They went to look at him.  The old man was in exactly the same condition.  His hoarse rattle, as regular as the ticking of a clock, was neither quicker nor slower.  It returned every second, the tone varying a little, according as the air entered or left his chest.

His son-in-law looked at him and then said: 

“He’ll pass away without our noticin’ it, just like a candle.”

They returned to the kitchen and started to eat without saying a word.  When they had swallowed their soup, they ate another piece of bread and butter.  Then, as soon as the dishes were washed, they returned to the dying man.

The woman, carrying a little lamp with a smoky wick, held it in front of her father’s face.  If he had not been breathing, one would certainly have thought him dead.

The couple’s bed was hidden in a little recess at the other end of the room.  Silently they retired, put out the light, closed their eyes, and soon two unequal snores, one deep and the other shriller, accompanied the uninterrupted rattle of the dying man.

The rats ran about in the garret.

The husband awoke at the first streaks of dawn.  His father-in-law was still alive.  He shook his wife, worried by the tenacity of the old man.

“Say, Phemie, he don’t want to quit.  What would you do?”

He knew that she gave good advice.

She answered: 

“You needn’t be afraid; he can’t live through the day.  And the mayor won’t stop our burying him to-morrow, because he allowed it for Maitre Renard’s father, who died just during the planting season.”

He was convinced by this argument, and left for the fields.

His wife baked the dumplings and then attended to her housework.

At noon the old man was not dead.  The people hired for the day’s work came by groups to look at him.  Each one had his say.  Then they left again for the fields.