Imperceptibly, like a little star at dawn, my brother Kolia faded away. Grandmother, he, and I slept in a small shed on planks covered with various rags. On the other side of the chinky wall of the outhouse was the family poultry-house. We could hear the sleepy, overfed fowls fluttering and clucking in the evening, and the golden, shrill-voiced cock awoke us in the morning. "Oh, I should like to tear you to pieces!" grandmother would grumble when they woke her. I was already awake, watching the sunbeams falling through the chinks upon my bed, and the silver specks of dust which danced in them. These little specks seemed to me just like the words in a fairy-tale. Mice had gnawed the planks, and red beetles with black spots ran about there. Sometimes, to escape from the stifling fumes which arose from the soil in the fowl-house, I crept out of the wooden hut, climbed to the roof, and watched the people of the house waking up, eyeless, large, and swollen with sleep. Here appeared the hairy noddle of the boatman Phermanov, a surly drunkard, who gazed at the sun with blear, running eyes and grunted like a bear. Then grandfather came hurrying out into the yard and hastened to the wash-house to wash himself in cold water. The garrulous cook of the landlord, a sharp-nosed woman, thickly covered with freckles, was like a cuckoo. The landlord himself was like an old fat dove. In fact, they were all like some bird, animal, or wild beast. Although the morning was so pleasant and bright, it made me feel sad, and I wanted to get away into the fields where no one came, for I had already learned that human creatures always spoil a bright day. One day when I was lying on the roof grandmother called me, and said in a low voice, shaking her head as she lay on her bed: "Kolia is dead." The little boy had slipped from the pillow, and lay livid, lanky on the felt cover. His night-shirt had worked itself up round his neck, leaving bare his swollen stomach and crooked legs. His hands were curiously folded behind his back, as if he had been trying to lift himself up. His head was bent on one side. "Thank God he has gone!" said grandmother as she did her hair. "What would have become of the poor little wretch had he lived?" Treading almost as if he were dancing, grandfather made his appearance, and cautiously touched the closed eyes of the child with his fingers. Grandmother asked him angrily: "What do you mean by touching him with unwashen hands?" He muttered: "There you are! He gets born, lives, and eats, and all for nothing." "You are half asleep," grandmother cut him short. He looked at her vacantly, and went out in the yard, saying: "I am not going to give him a funeral; you can do what you like about it." "Phoo! you miserable creature!"