I went out, and did not return until it was close upon evening. They buried Kolia on the morning of the following day, and during the mass I sat by the reopened grave with my dog and Yaz's father. He had dug the grave cheaply, and kept praising himself for it before my face. "I have only done this out of friendship; for any one else I should have charged so many rubles." Looking into the yellow pit, from which arose a heavy odor, I saw some moist black planks at one side. At my slightest movement the heaps of sand around the grave fell to the bottom in a thin stream, leaving wrinkles in the sides. I moved on purpose, so that the sand would hide those boards. "No larks now!" said Yaz's father, as he smoked. Grandmother carried out the little coffin. The "trashy peasant" sprang into the hole, took the coffin from her, placed it beside the black boards, and, jumping out of the grave, began to hurl the earth into it with his feet and his spade. Grandfather and grandmother also helped him in silence. There were neither priests nor beggars there; only we four amid a dense crowd of crosses. As she gave the sexton his money, grandmother said reproachfully: "But you have disturbed Varina's coffin." "What else could I do? If I had not done that, I should have had to take some one else's piece of ground. But there's nothing to worry about." Grandmother prostrated herself on the grave, sobbed and groaned, and went away, followed by grandfather, his eyes hidden by the peak of his cap, clutching at his worn coat. "They have sown the seed in unplowed ground," he said suddenly, running along in front, just like a crow on the plowed field. "What does he mean?" I asked grandmother. "God bless him! He has his thoughts," she answered. It was hot. Grandmother went heavily; her feet sank in the warm sand. She halted frequently, mopping her perspiring face with her handkerchief. "That black thing in the grave," I asked her, "was it mother's coffin?" "Yes," she said angrily. "Ignorant dog! It is not a year yet, and our Varia is already decayed! It is the sand that has done it; it lets the water through. If that had to happen, it would have been better to--" "Shall we all decay?" "All. Only the saints escape it." "You--you will not decay!" She halted, set my cap straight, and said to me seriously: "Don't think about it; it is better not. Do you hear?" But I did think of it. How offensive and revolting death was! How odious! I felt very badly about it. When we reached home grandfather had already prepared the samovar and laid the table. "Come and have some tea. I expect you are hot," he said. "I have put in my own tea as well. This is for us all." He went to grandmother and patted her on the shoulder. "Well, Mother, well?" Grandmother held up her hands. "Whatever does it all mean?" "This is what it means: God is angry with us; He is tearing everything away from us bit by bit. If families lived together in unity, like fingers on a hand--"