Lenka’s home resembled a garbage pit, and the ugliness of poverty stared from every inch of it, wounding the senses.

The samovar began to drone gloomily, a hoarse voice roared: “Get out!” and the barrel-organ suddenly grew silent.

“Take me back,” said Lenka with a sigh, “they have chased them off.…”

I seated him in the box, and frowning and rubbing his chest with his hands, he coughed cautiously.

“My chest hurts me, it isn’t good for me to breathe real air for long. Listen, have you ever seen devils?”

“No.”

“I haven’t either. At night I keep looking under the stove—maybe one will show up. But they don’t. There are devils in cemeteries, aren’t there?”

“What do you want them for?”

“It’s interesting. And what if one of them turns out to be kind? Katka, the water-carrier’s girl, once saw a little devil in a cellar—only she got frightened. Me, I’m not afraid of scary things.”

He wrapped his legs up in the rags and continued pertly:

“I even like scary dreams, I do really. Once in my dream I saw a tree growing upside down: the leaves were on the ground, and the roots stuck up into the sky. I got into a sweat, and woke up from fright. And once I saw Mammy: there she lies naked, and a dog is gnawing at her belly; the dog takes a bite, and spits it out, takes a bite, and spits it out. And once, our house suddenly shook itself and started to move down the street; it glided along banging the doors and windows, and behind it ran the cat of the Inspector’s wife.…”

He hunched his sharp little shoulders as if he were chilly, took a candy, unfolded the colored paper wrapper and carefully smoothing it out, placed it on the window-sill.

“I’ll make something with these wrappers, something nice. Or I’ll give them to Katka. She likes nice things too: pieces of glass, bits of crockery, paper, and things like that. And listen: if you kept on feeding a cockroach, would it grow to be the size of a horse?”

It was clear that he believed this to be true, so I said:

“If you feed it well, it will.”

“Of course!” he cried out joyfully. “But Mammy, the silly, laughs at me.”

And he added a bawdy word, insulting to a woman.

“She’s foolish! And as for a cat, you can feed it up so it gets to be the size of a horse in no time—isn’t that so?”

“Why, yes, that’s possible.”

“It’s a pity, I haven’t enough feed! That would be great!”

He fairly shook with excitement, pressing his hand to his chest.

“There would be flies the size of a dog! And cockroaches could be used to cart bricks—if it’s the size of a horse. it must be strong, eh?”