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

In plain words: Hearing left for a year. The others lived like deaf people, but still breathed, spoke and thought. So the ear came back.