When the master heard that the workhorse was dying, he cancelled his appointments for the day and hastened as fast as he could to the stables - all this in despite of the fact the master seldom cancelled any commitment, and had not visited the farm for years. When he arrived it was just after dusk. With gruff words the master dispatched the stable boys still in attendance; they went away sadly, dragging their feet, as though they had just remembered their homes were not such fine places to return to. But though things were now less cramped, the stableman kept twisting the lantern - maybe he wanted to go home, himself – and the prone horse and its shadow and the bales in the stall kept circling, so that, even as the master put his face down close, all that seemed certain was the subdued heartbeat of the air, with its influx of warmth and the smell of damp hay. But, then again, what was one to do, kneeling here, the master reflected irritably? He had arrived at the thing itself; what place left was there to go? For there was no place now the two of them could go together. Yet it remained at least to be together at the border, as a testament to the other times and borders they had shared; it was with something of this thought that the master declared softly: "You have been a good worker; you have served me well, and perhaps you deserve better than the life I have given you. But you never complained, and for that you have earned my respect." To which the workhorse looked back at him mildly, with that lack of emphasis one often takes for sagacity in animals, as if to say: “Why thank me? I did not know what I was doing. Now it is too late, and I am not going to make a scene.” Then the master thought of putting out honey or beer, but saw the frown on the stableman's face; evidently things were too far advanced for that. And so the two took their leave of one another.