"Is it really God's affair? Here is what I think about it. This is why they say, 4 Honor your father.' And they say the authorities are also from God. And this they confirm by miracles. But then if the old laws are changed, new miracles should have come. But where are they? There were no signs when new laws came, none whatever. Everything is as it was. In Nijni they discovered relics which performed miracles. But then a rumor arose that they were not true relics, for Seraphim's beard was gray and this one was red. The question is not the beard, but the miracle. Were there any miracles? There were, but they don't want to admit it. They call all signs false, or they say faith creates miracles. There are times when I want to beat them to stop their confounding my soul."
Again he stopped, and around him the night rose from the earth. The path fell more steeply, the stream flowed on more hastily, and the brush rustled, moving quietly.
"Go on, brother," I said to him, low.
He went forward. He did not stumble in the darkness but I almost fell on his back every step I took. He seemed to roll down like a stone, and his strange voice resounded in the stillness.
"If I believed them, it would be an end of everything. I am not especially kind-hearted. I had a brother in the military, and he hanged himself. My sister worked as a servant in a farmer's house near Birsky, and she gave birth to a child who is lame. It is four years old now and cannot walk. It means that a girl's life was ruined on account of a man's caprice. Where should she go now? My father is a drunkard and my elder brother has taken all the land. I have nothing."
We turned into the underbrush in the gray darkness. Now the stream went away from us into the depth, now again it flowed at our feet. Over our heads the night birds flew noiselessly, and above them were the stars.
I wanted to walk fast, but the man in front of me did not hurry and muttered to himself unceasingly, as if he were counting his words, and taking their weight.
"That dark one, Ratkof, is a good man. He lives according to the new law and takes the part of the oppressed. A policeman once beat me with a club and he immediately felled the policeman to the ground. He had to sit fourteen days for it. 'How can you fight the authorities?' I asked him when he came out. He immediately explained his law to me. I went to the priest, and the priest said, 'Ah, are these the thoughts you are plaiting?' Ratkof was sent to the prison in the city. He sat three months, and I nineteen days. 'What did he say?' they asked me there. 'Nothing.' 'What did he teach?' 'He taught nothing.' I am no fool myself. Ratkof came out. 'Forgive me,' I said to him, 'I was a fool.' But he laughed. 'It was nonsense,' he said."
My guide remained silent, and then, in a new voice, and lower, he continued:
"Everything is nonsense to him. He spits blood, that is nonsense; he starves, that too is nonsense."