And then his father's stories were transformed before him into images and pictures.

Without being aware of it, he mixed up those stories with his aunt's fairy-tales, thus creating for himself a chaos of adventures wherein the bright colours of fantasy were whimsically intertwined with the stern shades of reality.

This resulted in something colossal, incomprehensible; the boy closed his eyes and drove it all away from him and tried to check the play of his imagination, which frightened him.

In vain he attempted to fall asleep, and the chamber became more and more crowded with dark images.

Then he quietly roused his aunt.
"Auntie! Auntie!" "What?
Christ be with you." "I'll come to you," whispered Foma.
"Why?
Sleep, darling, sleep." "I am afraid," confessed the boy.
"You better say to yourself, 'And the Lord will rise again,' then you won't be afraid." Foma lies with his eyes open and says the prayer.