Rybin
smiled occasionally; sometimes he struck a finger on the table as
if punctuating a period. Now and then he cried out briefly: "So!"
And once, laughing out, he said quietly: "You're young. You know
people but little!"
Pavel stopping before him said seriously:
"Let's not talk of being old or being young. Let us rather see
whose thoughts are truer."
"That is, according to you, we've been fooled about God also. So!
I, too, think that our religion is false and injurious to us."
Here the mother intervened. When her son spoke about God and about
everything that she connected with her faith in him, which was dear
and sacred to her, she sought to meet his eyes, she wanted to ask
her son mutely not to chafe her heart with the sharp, bitter words
of his unbelief. And she felt that Rybin, an older man, would also
be displeased and offended. But when Rybin calmly put his question
to Pavel, she could no longer contain herself, and said firmly:
"When you speak of God, I wish you were more careful. You can do
whatever you like. You have your compensation in your work."
Catching her breath she continued with still greater vehemence:
"But I, an old woman, I will have nothing to lean upon in my distress
if you take my God away from me.
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