Ephimushka never talked on any other subject but women, and he was an unreliable workman. At one time he worked excellently and profitably, at another time he did not get on at all; his wooden hammer tapped the ridges lazily, leaving crevices. He always smelt of train-oil, but he had a smell of his own as well, a healthy, pleasant smell like that of a newly cut tree. One could discuss everything that was interesting with the carpenter. His words always stirred one's feelings, but it was hard to tell when he was serious and when joking. With Grigori it was better to talk about God; this was a subject which he loved, and on which he was an authority. "Grisha," I asked, "do you know there are people who do not believe in God?" He laughed quietly. "What do you mean?" "They say there is no God." "Oh, that's what you mean! I know that." And as if he were brushing away invisible flies, he went on: "King David said in his time, you remember, 'The fool hath said in his heart "There is no God."' That's what he said about that kind of fool. We can't do without God!" Osip said, as if agreeing with him: "Take away God from Petrukha here, and he will show you!" Shishlin's handsome face became stern. He touched his beard with fingers the nails of which were covered with dried lime, and said mysteriously: "God dwells in every incarnate being; the conscience and all the inner life is God-given." "And sin?" "Sin comes from the flesh, from Satan! Sin is an external thing, like smallpox, and nothing more! He who thinks too much of sin, sins all the more. If you do not remember sin, you will not sin. Thoughts about sin are from Satan, the lord of the flesh, who suggests." The bricklayer queried this. "You are wrong there." "I am not! God is sinless, and man is in His image and likeness. It is the image of God, the flesh, which sins, but His likeness cannot sin; it is a spirit." He smiled triumphantly, but Petr growled: "That is wrong." "According to you, I suppose," Osip asked the bricklayer, "if you don't sin, you can't repent, and if you don't repent, you won't be saved?" "That's a more hopeful way. Forget the devil and you cease to love God, the fathers said." Shishlin was not intemperate, but two glasses would make him tipsy. His face would be flushed, his eyes childish, and his voice would be raised in song. "How good everything is, brothers! Here we live, work a little, and have as much as we want to eat, God be praised! Ah, how good it is!" He wept. The tears trickled down his beard and gleamed on the silken hairs like false pearls. His laudation of our life and those tears were unpleasant to me. My grandmother had sung the praises of life more convincingly, more sympathetically, and not so crudely.