Neither can read or write, but what can be done in flowers they can do.

Long hours and dark rooms have made the man almost blind.
He suffers also from heart disease and dropsy.

He cannot do much, but he can sit, and sit, while his wife works and works, for in the underworld married women must work if dying husbands are to be cared for.
So for fifteen hours daily and nightly they sit at their roses! Then they lie down on the bed we see in the corner, but sleep does not come, for asthma troubles him, and he must be attended and nursed.
Shall we pay another visit to that underworld room?
Come, then.

Two months have passed away, the evil-smelling lamp is still burning, the woman still sits at the table, but no rose-leaves are before her; she is making black tulips.

On the bed lies a still form with limbs decently smoothed and composed; the poor blind eyes are closed for ever.