He seemed to be frightened himself. The piece of candle in his hand shook, and he had turned pale. His lips drooped unpleasantly, his eyes were moist, and he stealthily put his free hand behind his back. He infected me with his terror, and I glanced very cautiously into the depths under the root, which he had made into a vault, in the back of which he had lit three little tapers that filled the cave with a blue light. It was fairly broad, though in depth no more than the inside of a pail. But it was broad, and the sides were closely covered with pieces of broken glass and broken earthenware. In the center, on an elevation, covered with a piece of red cloth, stood a little coffin ornamented with silver paper, half covered with a fragment of material which looked like a brocaded pall. From beneath this was thrust out a little gray bird's claw and the sharp-billed head of a sparrow. Behind the coffin rose a reading-stand, upon which lay a brass baptismal cross, and around which burned three wax tapers, fixed in candlesticks made out of gold and silver paper which had been wrapped round sweets. The thin flames bowed toward the entrance to the cave. The interior was faintly bright with many colored gleams and patches of light. The odor of wax, the warm smell of decay and soil, beat against my face, made my eyes smart, and conjured up a broken rainbow, which made a great display of color. All this aroused in me such an overwhelming astonishment that it dispelled my terror. "Is it good?" "What is it for?" "It is a chapel," he explained. "Is it like one?" "I don't know." "And the sparrow is a dead person. Perhaps there will be relics of him, because he suffered undeservedly." "Did you find him dead?" "No. He flew into the shed and I put my cap over him and smothered him." "But why?" "Because I chose to." He looked into my eyes and asked again: "Is it good?" "No." Then he bent over the hole, quickly covered it with the board, pressed the bricks into the earth with the iron, stood up, and, brushing the dirt from his knees, asked sternly: "Why don't you like it?" "I am sorry for the sparrow." He stared at me with eyes which were perfectly stationary, like those of a blind person, and, striking my chest, cried: "Fool, it is because you are envious that you say that you do not like it! I suppose you think that the one in your garden in Kanatnoe Street was better done." I remembered my summer-house, and said with conviction: "Certainly it was better." Sascha pulled off his coat and threw it on the ground, and, turning up his sleeves, spat on his hands and said: "If that is so, we will fight about it." I did not want to fight. My courage was undermined by depression; I felt uneasy as I looked at the wrathful face of my cousin. He made a rush at me, struck my chest with his head, and knocked me over. Then he sat astride of me and cried: "Is it to be life or death?"