Mikhail's words grew connected and blossomed out and came close to my soul. I do not mean to say that I understood his words at once and fathomed their depths, but for the first time that evening I felt their close relationship to my heart, and the whole earth seemed to me a Bethlehem saturated with the blood of children. I grew to understand the keen desire of the Virgin Mother when, looking upon hell, she asked of the Archangel Mikhail: "Oh, Archangel, let me suffer in this fire. Let me take part in this great agony." Only that here I did not see sinners, but righteous ones, wishing to destroy the hell upon earth, for the sake of which they were serenely prepared to undergo all suffering.
"Perhaps there are no longer holy anchorites," I said to Mikhail, "because man is not going away from the world, but toward the world."
"The true faith," he answered, "comes out in a true movement."
"Take me into this movement," I begged of him.
Everything burned within me.
"No," he answered. "Wait a while and consider it. It is still too soon for you. If you, with your character, should fall into the enemy's noose at present, you would be entangled in it uselessly and for a long time. On the other hand, you ought to go away after what you have said. There is much that is still not clear to you, and you are not free enough for our work. Its great beauty has captivated and allured you, but though it is displayed before you in its whole strength you stand before it as if you were standing in a square room from which you can see the temple being built, in all its immensity and beauty. But it is being built quietly and evenly day by day, and if you are not familiar with the whole plan, the sublime temple will disappear and vanish from your vision, and the vision, which was not deep in your soul, will vanish and the labor of building will seem beyond your strength."
"Why do you quench my ardor?" I asked him with pain. "I have found a place for myself and was happy when I saw that I could be useful."
He answered me calmly and sadly:
"I do not consider that you are capable of living by a plan which is not clear to you, and I see that the consciousness of your relation to the spirit of the working class has not yet arisen in your soul. You have been sharpened by the friction of life, and you stand in advance of the thought of the people. You do not look upon yourself as one of them, but it seems to me that you consider yourself a hero, ready to give alms to the weak from the overflow of your strength; that you consider yourself something special, living for yourself, and that in yourself is the beginning and end, and that you are not a link in the exquisite and immense unending chain."
I began to understand why he sent me back to earth and unconsciously felt that his words were right.