Once, when Topándy and Lorand were amusing themselves at greater length with optical experiments in the lonely scientific apartment, Lorand took the liberty of introducing the subject.
"Is it true that that girl has grown up without any knowledge whatever?"
"Surely; she knows neither God nor alphabet."
"Why don't you allow the poor child to learn to know them?"
"What, her alphabet? Because in my eyes it is quite superfluous. A mad idea once occurred to me of picking some naked gypsy child out of the streets, with the intention of making a happy being therefrom. What is happiness in the world? Ease and ignorance. Had I a child of my own, I should do the same with it. The secret of life is to have a good appetite, sound sleep, and a good heart. If I reflect what bitternesses have been my lot my whole life, I find the cause of each one was what I have learned. Many a night did I lie awake in agonized distraction, while my servants were snoring in peace. I desired to see before me a person as happy as it was my ideal to be; a person free from those distressing tortures, which the civilized world has discovered for the persecution of man by man. Well, I have begun by telling you why I did not teach Czipra her alphabet."
"And God?"
Topándy took his eyes off the telescope, with which he had just been gazing at the starry sky.
"I don't know Him myself."
Lorand turned from him with a distressed air. Topándy remarked it.
"My dear boy, my dear twenty-year-old child, probably you know more than I do; if you know Him, I beg you to teach me."