"Christ never leaves himself without a witness long," he answered sententiously. "And already there are symptoms enough that the creed of the materialist does not satisfy the soul. Look at our Tolstoï, who is coming back to Christianity after ranging at will through the gaudy pleasure-grounds of science and life; it is true his Christianity is cast after his own formula, and that he has still much intellectual pride to conquer, but he is on the right road to the fountain of life. But, little father, you are unlike yourself this morning," he went on, putting his hand to my hot forehead. "You are not well." He kissed me. "Let me give you another cup of tea," he said, and turned on the tap of the samovar with an air that disposed of the subject. I sipped at my cup to please him, remarking in the interval between two sips as indifferently as I could, "But what makes you so bitter against the Jews?" "And what makes you so suddenly their champion?" he retorted. "When have I championed them?" I asked, backing. "Your pardon," he said. "Of course I should have understood you are only putting in a word for them for argument's sake. But I confess I have no patience with any one who has any patience with these bloodsuckers of the State. Every true Russian must abhor them. They despise the true faith, and are indifferent to our ideals. They sneak out of the conscription. They live for themselves, and regard us as their natural prey. Our peasantry are corrupted by their brandy-shops, squeezed by their money-lenders, and roused to discontent by the insidious utterances of their peddlers, d----d wandering Jews, who hate the Government and the Tschinn and everything Russian. When did a Jew invest his money in Russian industries? They are a filthy, treacherous, swindling set. Believe me, _batiushka_, pity is wasted upon them." "Pity is never spent upon them," I retorted. "They are what the Russians--what we Russians--have made them. Who has pent them into their foul cellars and reeking dens? They work with their brains, and you--we--abuse them for not working with their hands. They work with their hands, and the Czar issues a ukase that they are to be driven off the soil they have tilled. It is Æsop's fable of the wolf and the lamb." "In which the wolf is the Jew," said Paul coolly. "The Jew can always be trusted to take care of himself. His cunning is devilish. Till his heart is regenerate, the Jew remains the Ishmael of the modern world, his hand against every man's, every man's against his." "'Love thy neighbour as thyself,'" I quoted bitterly. "Even so," said Paul. "The Jew must be cut off, even as the Christian must pluck out his own eye if it offendeth him. Christ came among us to bring not peace but a sword. If the Kingdom of Christ is delayed by these vermin, they must be poisoned off for the sake of Russia and humanity at large."