«Are there not birds on the millet?» Pyotr Yevseyevich would suddenly remember with agitation. «They peck at the young seeds, and what would then feed the population?»

Pyotr Yevseyevich would hurry to the millet field and, indeed, saw the feeding birds.

«What is going on, oh my Lord God? What will remain whole, if nothing of good can rest peacefully? These wild elements have exhausted me — rain, thirst, sparrows, stopping trains! How can the State live against this? And yet there are people who are offended at the country: are they real citizens? They are descendants of the Horde!»

Having driven the birds off the millet, Pyotr Yevseyevich would notice under his feet a weakened worm that did not manage to follow moisture into the depths of the earth.

«Now this one exists also, gnawing at the soil!» Pyotr Yevseyevich would fume. «As if the State cannot do without it!» And Pyotr Yevseyevich would crush the worm to death: let it now live not in the history of humanity, which is already crowded enough, but in Eternity.

At the beginning of the night Pyotr Yevseyevich would return to his flat. The sparrows also became quiet then and would not come to eat the millet; so the tiny seeds would become more ripened and firm through the night — it would be harder to peck at them tomorrow. With the consolation of this thought Pyotr Yevseyevich would finish eating the crumbs of the morning breakfast and would lay his head to slumber, but could not fall asleep. He would imagine things: he would listen and hear the stirring of mice in co-operative enterprises while the watchmen sat in tea-houses riveted to the function of the radio, not believing it for joy. Somewhere in a seldom visited steppe the kulaks are chasing a village correspondent, and the lonely worker of the State falls down powerless under the brunt of thick force, similarly to the bread of life falling down dead under an unbalanced storm.