"What? For a sin committed by one three years of age (for, indeed, my little son was no more)? The accident happened of his pulling down a lamp upon himself, and of my wife seizing him, and herself being burnt to death. She was weak, too, for but eleven days had passed since her confinement."
"No. What I mean is that in that accident you see a punishment for sins committed by the child's father and mother."
This reply from the corner came with perfect confidence. The black-bearded man, however, pretended not to hear it, but spread out his hands as though parting the air before him, and proceeded hurriedly, breathlessly to detail the manner in which his wife and little one had met their deaths. And all the time that he was doing so one had an inkling that often before had he recounted his narrative of horror, and that often again would he repeat it. His shaggy black eyebrows, as he delivered his speech, met in a single strip, while the whites of his eyes grew bloodshot, and their dull, black pupils never ceased their nervous twitching.
Presently the gloomy recital was once more roughly, unceremoniously broken in upon by the cheerful voice of the Christ-loving pilgrim.
"It is not right, brother," the voice said, "to blame God for untoward accidents, or for mistakes and follies committed by ourselves."
"But if God be God, He is responsible for all things."
"Not so. Concede to yourself the faculty of reason."
"Pah! What avails reason if it cannot make me understand?"
"Cannot make you understand WHAT?"
"The main point, the point why MY wife had to be burnt rather than my neighbour's?"