And, pretending that the portrait answered, I continued in a different voice with an expression of extreme sternness and boundless grief:
“Yes, I do reproach Him. Jesus, Jesus! Why is Your face so pure, so blissful? You have passed only over the brink of human sufferings, as over the brink of an abyss, and only the foam of the bloody and miry waves have touched You. Do You command me, a human being, to sink into the dark depth? Great is Your Golgotha, Jesus, but too reverent and joyous, and one small but interesting stroke is missing—the horror of aimlessness!”
Here I interrupted the speech of the Portrait, with an expression of anger.
“How dare you,” I exclaimed; “how dare you speak of aimlessness in our prison?”
They were silent; and suddenly Jesus, without opening His eyes—He even seemed to close them more tightly—answered:
“Who knows the mysteries of the heart of Jesus?”
I burst into laughter, and my esteemed reader will easily understand this laughter. It turned out that I, a cool and sober mathematician, possessed a poetic talent and could compose very interesting comedies.
I do not know how all this would have ended, for I had already prepared a thundering answer for my roommate when the appearance of the keeper, who brought me food, suddenly interrupted me. But apparently my face bore traces of excitement, for the man asked me with stern sympathy:
“Were you praying?”
I do not remember what I answered.