e drops out from the heart, there will be a
wound in it, mark my word! It is necessary, Pavel, to invent a new
faith; it is necessary to create a God for all. Not a judge, not a
warrior, but a God who shall be the friend of the people."

"You had one! There was Christ!"

"Wait a moment! Christ was not strong in spirit. 'Let the cup pass
from me,' he said. And he recognized Caesar. God cannot recognize
human powers. He himself is the whole of power. He does not divide
his soul saying: so much for the godly, so much for the human. If
Christ came to affirm the divine he had no need for anything human. But
he recognized trade, and he recognized marriage. And it was unjust of
him to condemn the fig tree. Was it of its own will that it was barren
of fruit? Neither is the soul barren of good of its own accord. Have
I sown the evil in it myself? Of course not!"

The two voices hummed continuously in the room, as if clutching at each
other and wrestling in exciting play. Pavel walked hurriedly up and
down the room; the floor cracked under his feet. 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 unk