About midnight grandmother tenderly awoke me. "Are you coming? If you do something for other people, your hand will soon be well." She took my arm and led me in the dark, as if I had been blind. It was a black, damp night; the wind blew continuously, making the river flow more swiftly and blowing the cold sand against my legs. Grandmother cautiously approached the darkened windows of the poor little houses, crossed herself three times, laid a five-copeck piece and three cracknel biscuits on the window-sills, and crossed herself again. Glancing up into the starless sky, she whispered: "Holy Queen of Heaven, help these people! We are all sinners in thy sight, Mother dear." Now, the farther we went from home, the denser and more intense the darkness and silence became. The night sky was pitch black, unfathomable, as if the moon and stars had disappeared forever. A dog sprang out from somewhere and growled at us. His eyes gleamed in the darkness, and I cravenly pressed close to grandmother. "It is all right," she said; "it is only a dog. It is too late for the devil; the cocks have already begun to crow." Enticing the dog to her, she stroked it and admonished it: "Look here, doggie, you must not frighten my grandson." The dog rubbed itself against my legs, and the three of us went on. Twelve times did grandmother place "secret alms" on a window-sill. It began to grow light: gray houses appeared out of the darkness; the belfry of Napolni Church rose up white like a piece of sugar; the brick wall of the cemetery seemed to become transparent. "The old woman is tired," said grandmother; "it is time we went home. When the women wake up they will find that Our Lady has provided a little for their children. When there is never enough, a very little comes in useful. O Olesha, our people live so poorly and no one troubles about them! "The rich man about God never thinks; Of the terrible judgment he does not dream; The poor man is to him neither friend nor brother; All he cares about is getting gold together. But that gold will be coal in hell! "That's how it is. But we ought to live for one another, while God is for us all. I am glad to have you with me again." And I, too, was calmly happy, feeling in a confused way that I had taken part in something which I should never forget. Close to me shivered the brown dog, with its bare muzzle and kind eyes which seemed to be begging forgiveness. "Will it live with us?" "What? It can, if it likes. Here, I will give it a cracknel biscuit. I have two left. Let us sit down on this bench. I am so tired." We sat down on a bench by a gate, and the dog lay at our feet, eating the dry cracknel, while grandmother informed me: "There's a Jewess living here; she has about ten servants, more or less. I asked her, 'Do you live by the law of Moses?' But she answered, 'I live as if God were with me and mine; how else should I live?'"