I looked upon him as immortal; it was hard for me to believe that he might grow older and change. He liked to tell stories about merchants and coiners who had become notorious. I had heard many such stories from grandfather, who told them better than the valuer, but the underlying theme was the same--that riches always lead to sin towards God and one's fellow-creatures. Petr Vassilich had no pity for human creatures, but he spoke of God with warmth of feeling, sighing and covering his eyes. "And so they try to cheat God, and He, the Lord Jesus Christ, sees it all and weeps. 'My people, my people, my unhappy people, hell is being prepared for you!'" Once I jokingly reminded him: "But you cheat the peasants yourself." He was not offended by this. "Is that a great matter as far as I am concerned?" he said. "I may rob them of from three to five rubles, and that is all it amounts to!" When he found me reading, he would take the book out of my hands and ask me questions about what I had read, in a fault-finding manner. With amazed incredulity he would say to the shopman: "Just look at that now; he understands books, the young rascal!" And he would give me a memorable, intelligent lecture: "Listen to what I tell you now; it is worth your while. There were two Kyrills, both of them bishops; one Kyrill of Alexandria, and the other Kyrill of Jerusalem. The first warred against the cursed heretic, Nestorius, who taught obscenely that Our Lady was born in original sin and therefore could not have given birth to God; but that she gave birth to a human being with the name and attributes of the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, and therefore she should be called not the God-Bearer, but the Christ-Bearer. Do you understand? That is called heresy! And Kyrill of Jerusalem fought against the Arian heretics." I was delighted with his knowledge of church history, and he, stroking his beard with his well-cared-for, priest-like hands, boasted: "I am a past master in that sort of thing. When I was in Moscow, I was engaged in a verbal debate against the poisonous doctrines of the Nikonites, with both priests and seculars. I, my little one, actually conducted discussions with professors, yes! To one of the priests I so drove home the verbal scourge that his nose bled infernally, that it did!" His cheeks were flushed; his eyes shone. The bleeding of the nose of his opponent was evidently the highest point of his success, in his opinion; the highest ruby in the golden crown of his glory, and he told the story voluptuously. "A ha--a--andsome, wholesome-looking priest he was! He stood on the platform and drip, drip, the blood came from his nose. He did not see his shame. Ferocious was the priest as a desert lion; his voice was like a bell. But very quietly I got my words in between his ribs, like saws. He was really as hot as a stove, made red-hot by heretical malice--ekh--that was a business!"