With all life’s sweetness.
What, say, is life for,
If one loves not?
Suddenly, it seemed to her that the ceiling was shaking and that the naked Cupids were falling upon her head. She cried out; William Mons reassured her; it was only the wind bulging out like a sail the canvas of the picture nailed to the ceiling.
Again the shutters rattled, this time with such force that everybody looked round in terror.
The polonaise began; the couples set out and music drowned the noise of the storm. Only the shivering old nobles, warming themselves round the stove, listened to the howling of the wind in the chimney, and whispered to one another, sighing and shaking their heads. They seemed to hear in the sounds of the storm, rendered more ill-omened still by the music, the old words: “out of the sea sorrow, out of the water, grief!”
Peter continued his conversation with Theodosius; he asked him about the heresy of the Moscow iconoclasts, Fomka the barber and Dmitri the physician. Both heretics, in propagating their teaching, had referred to the Tsar’s recent decrees: “Thanks be to God, nowadays in Muscovy everybody is free to follow what faith he chooses.”
“According to their teaching,” continued Theodosius, with a smile which made it impossible to infer whether he disagreed or sympathised with the heresy, “the true faith is founded on the Scriptures and good works, and not on miracles and traditions.
“People of any creed can be saved according to the apostle’s word: ‘In every nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him.”