He threatened me with the wrath and the vengeance of God, but he spoke in a low tone, and his whole body trembled so that his cassock flowed like green waves. He placed before my spirit a threatening, gruesome God, severe in countenance, wrathful in spirit, poor in mercy, and like the old God Jehovah in sternness. I said to the archbishop:
"Now you, yourself, have fallen into heresies. Is this then the Christian God? Where have you hidden Christ? Why do you place before man the stern Judge instead of the Friend and the Helper?" He clutched my hair and shook me to and fro, saying, haltingly:
"Who are you, crazy one? You should be brought to the police, to prison, to a monastery, to Siberia!"
I came to myself. It was clear to me that if man called in the police to protect his God, then neither he nor his God could have much strength, and much less beauty. I arose and said:
"Let me go."
The old man fell back and spoke breathlessly.
"What are you going to do?"
"I will go away, I can learn nothing here. Your words are dead and you kill God with them."
He began to speak about the police again; but it was all the same to me. The police could not do anything worse than what he had already done. "Angels serve for the glory of God, not the police," I said; "but if your faith teaches you something else, then stick to your faith."
His face became green, and he jumped at me. "Alexei," he called, "throw him out!"