But he kept on.
"That's why," he said, "the devil is painted with horns and feet like a goat's, because he is the brute element in man."
Best of all Larion spoke about Christ. I always wept when I pictured the bitter fate that befell the Holy Son of God. His whole life stood before me, from the discussion in the Temple with the wise men, to Golgotha, and He was like a pure and beautiful child in His ineffable love for the people, with a kind smile for all and a tender word of consolation—always like a child, dazzling in His beauty.
"Even with the wise men of the Temple," Larion said, "Christ conversed like a child, that is why in his simple wisdom He appeared greater than they. You, Motka, remember this, and try to conserve the child-like throughout your whole life, for in it lies truth."
I would ask him:
"Will Christ come again soon?"
"Yes, soon," he would say, "soon, for it is said that people are again looking for Him."
As Larion's words now come back to me, it seems to me that he saw God as the great Creator of the most beautiful things, and man as an incompetent being, who was lost on the by-ways of the world. And he pitied this talentless heir to the great riches left to him on this earth by God.
Both he and Savelko had one faith. I remember that an ikon appeared miraculously in our village. Once, very early on an autumn morning a woman came to the well for water, when suddenly she saw something glow in the darkness at the bottom of the well. She called the people together. The village elder appeared, the priest came, and Larion ran up. They let a man down into the well and he brought up the ikon of the "unburnt bush." They performed mass right on the spot and then they decided to put up a shrine above the well, the priest crying:
"Orthodox, give your offerings."