“How should I know?” replied Sanine, “and, besides, what do I care? My life means my sensations, pleasant or unpleasant; what is outside those limits; well, to the deuce with it all! Whatever hypothesis we may like to invent, it will always remain an hypothesis upon which it would be folly to construct life. Let him who likes worry about it; as for me, I mean to live!” “Let us all have a drink on the strength of it!” suggested Ivanoff. “But you believe in God, don’t you?” said Ilitsch, looking at Sanine with bleared eyes. “Nowadays nobody believes in anything—not even in that which is easy of belief.” Sanine laughed. “Yes, I believe in God. As a child I did that, and there’s no need to dispute or to affirm any reasons for doing so. It’s the most profitable thing, really, for if there is a God, I offer Him sincere faith, and, if there isn’t, well, all the better for me.” “But on belief or on unbelief all life is based?” said Yourii. Sanine shook his head, and smiled complacently. “No, my life is not based on such things,” he said. “On what, then?” asked Yourii, languidly. “A—a—a! I mustn’t drink any more,” he thought to himself, as he drew his hand across his cold, moist brow. If Sanine made any reply he did not hear it. His head was in a whirl, and for a moment he felt quite overcome. “I believe that God exists,” continued Sanine, “though I am not certain, absolutely certain. But whether He does or not, I do not know Him, nor can I tell what He requires of me. How could I possibly know this, even though I professed the most ardent faith in Him? God is God, and, not being human, cannot be judged by human standards. His created world around us contains all; good and evil, life and death, beauty and ugliness—everything, in fact, and thus all sense and all exact definition are lost to us, for His sense is not human, nor His ideas of good and evil human, either. Our conception of God must always be an idolatrous one, and we shall always give to our fetish the physiognomy and the garb suitable to the climatic conditions of the country in which we live. Absurd, isn’t it.” “Yes, you’re right,” grunted Ivanoff, “quite right!” “Then, what is the good of living?” asked Yourii, as he pushed back his glass in disgust, “or of dying, either?” “One thing I know,” replied Sanine, “and that is, that I don’t want my life to be a miserable one. Thus, before all things, one must satisfy one’s natural desires. Desire is everything. When a man’s desires cease, his life ceases, too, and if he kills his desires, then he kills himself.” “But his desires may be evil?” “Possibly.” “Well, what then.” “Then … they must just be evil,” replied Sanine blandly, as he looked Yourii full in the face with his clear, blue eyes. Ivanoff raised his eyebrows incredulously and said nothing. Yourii was silent also. For some reason or other he felt embarrassed by those clear, blue eyes, though he tried to keep looking at them.