I saw that I could make no headway with him by words, and my anger was already gone. I now only felt hurt and cold.
"You are all beasts," I said. "Can you make fun of a man because his parents abandoned him?"
He threw his words at me as if they were little stones:
"Don't be a hypocrite. We know you by your actions. You eat stolen bread and others suffer want."
"You lie!" I said. "I work for my bread."
"Without work you can't even steal a chicken. That is an old story."
He looked at me with a devilish smile in his eyes and said pityingly:
"Oh, Matvei, what a good child you used to be. And now you have become learned, despite God, and like all thieves in our country, you found a religion based on God's truth that all men have not equally long fingers."
I threw him out of the office. I did not want to understand his play on words, for I considered myself a true servant of God and valued my own opinion more than any one else's.
I felt strange and fearful, as if the strength of my soul was vanishing. I had not sunk so low as to whine before God against man, for I was no Pharisee for all that I was a fool. I knelt before the holy Virgin of Abalatzk and looked up at her countenance and at her hands, which were uplifted to heaven. The little fire in the holy lamp flickered and a faint shadow spread over the ikon. The same shadow fell on my heart and something strange and invisible and oppressive rose up betwixt God and myself. I lost all joy in prayer, and I became wretched and even Olga was no longer a comfort to me.