Paula said to her aunt above: "If I only knew what was the matter with
the goat-boy! He is quite changed. You wouldn't know him. If he would
only sing again!"

"It must be the frightful rain which has silenced the boy so!" remarked
the aunt.

"Everything all comes together; let us go home, Aunt," begged Paula,
"there is no more pleasure here. First I lost my beautiful cross, and it
can't be found; then comes this endless rain, and now we can't ever hear
the merry goat-boy any more. Let us go away!"

"The cure must be finished, or it will do no good," explained the aunt.

It was also dark and gray on the following day, and the rain poured down
without ceasing. Moni spent the day exactly like the one before. He sat
under the rock and his thoughts went restlessly round in a circle, for
when he decided: "Now, I will go and confess the wrong, so that I shall
dare to look up to the dear Lord again," then he saw the little kid
under the knife before him and it all began over again in his mind from
the beginning; so that with thinking and brooding, and the weight he
carried, he was very tired by night, and crept home in the streaming
rain as if he didn't notice it at all.

By the Bath House below the landlord was standing in the back doorway
and called to Moni: "Come in with them. They are wet enough! Why, you
are crawling down the mountain like a snail! I wonder what is the matter
with you!"