When he
spoke all other sounds were drowned by his voice; but above the
slow, calm flow of Rybin's dull utterance were heard the strokes of
the pendulum and the low creaking of the frost, as of sharp claws
scratching the walls of the house.
"I will speak to you in my own way, in the words of a stoker. God
is like fire. He does not strengthen anything. He cannot. He
merely burns and fuses when he gives light. He burns down churches,
he does not raise them. He lives in the heart."
"And in the mind!" insisted Pavel.
"That's it! In the heart and in the mind. There's the rub. It's
this that makes all the trouble and misery and misfortune. We have
severed ourselves from our own selves. The heart was severed from
the mind, and the mind has disappeared. Man is not a unit. It is
God that makes him a unit, that makes him a round, circular thing.
God always makes things round. Such is the earth and all the stars
and everything visible to the eye. The sharp, angular things are
the work of men."
The mother fell asleep and did not hear Rybin depart.
But he began to come often, and if any of Pavel's comrades were
present, Rybin sat in a corner and was silent, only occasionally
interjecting: "That's so!"
And once looking at everybody from his corner with his dark glance
he said somberly:
"We must speak about that which is; that which will be is unknown
to us.
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