And he went out. The first to fall asleep was Grigori, with his mouth open surprisingly; then the carpenters fell asleep; but Petr, Osip, and Phoma drew nearer to me and listened attentively. When I finished reading Osip put out the lamp at once. By the stars it was nearly midnight. Petr asked in the darkness: "What was that written for? Against whom?" "Now for sleep!" said Osip, taking off his boots. Petr persisted in his question: "I asked, against whom was that written?" "I suppose they know!" replied Osip, arranging himself for sleep on a scaffolding. "If it is written against stepmothers, it is a waste of time. It won't make stepmothers any better," said the bricklayer firmly. "And if it is meant for Petr, it is also futile; his sin in his answer. For murder you go to Siberia, and that's all there is about it! Books are no good for such sins; no use, eh?" Osip did not reply, and the bricklayer added; "They can do nothing themselves and so they discuss other people's work. Like women at a meeting. Good-by, it is bedtime." He stood for a minute in the dark blue square of the open door, and asked: "Are you asleep, Osip? What do you think about it?" "Eh?" responded the carpenter sleepily. "All right; go to sleep." Shishlin had fallen on his side where he had been sitting. Phoma lay on some trampled straw beside me. The whole neighborhood was asleep. In the distance rose the shriek of the railway engines, the heavy rumbling of iron wheels, the clang of buffers. In the shed rose the sound of snoring in different keys. I felt uncomfortable. I had expected some sort of discussion, and there had been nothing of the kind. But suddenly Osip spoke softly and evenly: "My child, don't you believe anything of that. You are young; you have a long while to live; treasure up your thoughts. Your own sense is worth twice some one else's. Are you asleep, Phoma?" "No," replied Phoma with alacrity. "That's right! You have both received some education, so you go on reading. But don't believe all you read. They can print anything, you know. That is their business!" He lowered his feet from the scaffolding, and resting his hands on the edge of the plank, bent over us, and continued: "How ought you to regard books? Denunciation of certain people, that's what a book is! Look, they say, and see what sort of a man this is--a carpenter, or any one else--and here is a gentleman, a different kind of man! A book is not written without an object, and generally around some one." Phoma said thickly: "Petr was right to kill that contractor!" "That was wrong. It can never be right to kill a man. I know that you do not love Grigori, but put that thought away from you. We are none of us rich people. To-day I am master, to-morrow a workman again." "I did not mean you, Uncle Osip." "It is all the same." "You are just--"