"No, what he demanded was that all those who could should support themselves--hear that, my daughter!--and that those who had superfluity should employ it in work which should be fruitful for others. He called that Church cowardly and shameless which did not make that demand without respect of persons." "Like Tolstoi, then?" "No, they were very different. Tolstoi is a Slav by birth, Ivan the Terrible and Tolstoi both of them; for these contradictions pre-suppose each other. The one did everything by force, the other resists nothing. The one had to crush all wills under his own in order to make room for himself, the other will willingly yield, knowing that a desire, once satisfied, dies. The Slav impulse towards tyranny, the Slav impulse towards martyrdom, the same passionate excess in both. Born of the same people, and under the same conditions. "All the freedom _we_ in Western Europe enjoy we have attained by keeping bounds, not for ourselves alone but for others. And also by resisting. It is weakness that knows no limits: strength ordains limits and observes them." "But yet the Bible teaches----" "Yes, yes, but the Bible is from the East too; the Westerns act _in opposition to_ the Bible. What I am saying comes from your father." "Did he know Tolstoi?" "No, but what I have been saying is older than either the Bible or Tolstoi." "Then he was a great orator?" "That I could hardly venture to call him; he could not be reckoned among the prophets, but among the seers. "Now don't interrupt me. He believed that in another hundred years to live in idleness and superfluity would be looked upon by most people as now we look upon a life of fraud and crime." "Oh, mother, how did you feel about it?" "His voice seemed to surge and vibrate in my ears both day and night. A storm-cloud seemed to surround me. Not as though he thundered or commanded. No, it was his personality, and something in the voice itself. It was deep and restrained, as though from a cavern; it came fitfully, but without cessation. I believe he spoke for over two hours. Whomever he happened to look at looked at him, and if he looked away the other continued to gaze--he couldn't help it, you understand. His eyes blazed with inward fire, he stood bending forward like a tree on a hillside. The image of the forest rose in my mind. Later, when I was nearer to him, the breath of the forest seemed to hang round him. And his skin was so clear! For instance, that part of his throat which was not sunburnt, because he stooped. When he lifted his head, you can't imagine how pure and fair it was.