He half closed his eyes, looked at me and answered calmly: "People do not idle here. They work; and there is no time to wash often." I saw that I had struck the wrong man. I wanted to answer, but he turned on his heel and went away. I felt foolish, sat down and looked about me. The room was large and clean. In the corner there was a table set for supper, and on the walls there were shelves with books. The books were mostly secular, but there was also a Bible, the gospels and an old Slavic psalm-book. I went out into the court and washed myself. The uncle entered, his cap still farther back on his head, and he swung his arms and held his head forward like a bull. "Well, I will wash myself," he said. "Pump some water for me." His voice was like that of a trumpet and both his hands together were as large as a big soup tureen. When he had washed some of the soot off his face, I saw that he had high cheek-bones and a skin like copper. We sat down to supper. They ate, talked about their own affairs and did not ask me who I was or why I came. Still they offered me things hospitably and looked at me in a friendly way. There was something very solid about them, as if the earth was firm under their feet. I felt like shaking it for them--why were they better than I? "Are you Old Believers?" I asked. "We?" the uncle replied. "No." "Then you are orthodox?" The nephew frowned and the uncle shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Perhaps we have to show him our passports, Mikhail." I understood that I had acted foolishly, but I did not want to stop. "I did not want to see your passports," I said. "I wanted to see your thoughts." "Thoughts? Right away, Your Excellency. Thoughts, forward!" And he laughed like a stallion. Mikhail, who was making the tea, said calmly: "I know why you came. You are not the first one whom Juna has sent us. He knows people and never sends empty men." The uncle felt my forehead with his palm and laughed: "Please look more gay. Don't show your trumps right away, or you may lose." They evidently considered themselves men rich in soul and that I was a beggar compared to them. They did not hurry to quench my hungry heart with their wisdom. I became angry and wanted to quarrel, but I could find no reason; and that angered me still more. I asked at random: "What do you mean by an empty man?" The uncle answered: "A man who can fill up with anything you wish." Suddenly Mikhail went up quietly to me and said, in a soft voice: "You believe in God?" "Yes." But I became confused at my answer. It was not true. Did I really believe? Mikhail asked again: "And you respect people?" "No," I answered. "Don't you see," he said, "that they are created in the image of God?" The uncle, the devil take him, smiled like a copper basin in the sun. "With such people," I thought to myself, "one must argue sincerely and if I should fall asunder in little pieces, they will gather me up again."