The ear (hearing) departed, and having been absent for a year, it came back and said: 'How have you been able to live without me?' They replied: 'Like deaf people, not hearing with the ear, but breathing with the breath, speaking with the tongue, seeing with the eye, knowing with the mind, generating with seed. Thus we have lived.' Then the ear entered in.

In plain words: Then hearing left for a year. The others lived on like deaf people, still breathing, speaking, seeing and thinking. So the ear came back in.