'O master!' I said, 'great and more great in time to come, why?—why?'
He took me by the arm and drew me close.
'Have you strength,' he said, 'to bear it if I tell you why?'
I knew what he was about to say. I felt it in the quivering of my veins, and my heart that bounded as if it would escape from my breast; but I would not quail from what he did not shrink to utter. I could speak no word, but I looked him in the face and waited—for that which was more terrible than all.
He held me by the arm, as if he would hold me up when the shock of anguish came. 'They are in vain,' he said, 'in vain—because God rules over all.'
His arm was strong; but I fell at his feet like a dead man.
How miserable is that image, and how unfit to use! Death is still and cool and sweet. There is nothing in it that pierces like a sword, that burns like fire, that rends and tears like the turning wheels. O life, O pain, O terrible name of God in which is all succor and all torment! What are pangs and tortures to that, which ever increases in its awful power, and has no limit nor any alleviation, but whenever it is spoken penetrates through and through the miserable soul? O God, whom once I called my Father! O Thou who gavest me being, against whom I have fought, whom I fight to the end, shall there never be anything but anguish in the sound of Thy great name?
When I returned to such command of myself as one can have who has been transfixed by that sword of fire, the master stood by me still. He had not fallen like me, but his face was drawn with anguish and sorrow like the face of my friend who had been with me in the lazar-house, who had disappeared on the dark mountains. And as I looked at him, terror seized hold upon me, and a desire to flee and save myself, that I might not be drawn after him by the longing that was in his eyes.
The master gave me his hand to help me to rise, and it trembled, but not like mine.
'Sir,' I cried, 'have not we enough to bear? Is it for hatred, is it for vengeance, that you speak that name?'