"Don't be a hypocrite. We know you by your actions. You eat stolen bread and others suffer want." "You lie!" I said. "I work for my bread." "Without work you can't even steal a chicken. That is an old story." He looked at me with a devilish smile in his eyes and said pityingly: "Oh, Matvei, what a good child you used to be. And now you have become learned, despite God, and like all thieves in our country, you found a religion based on God's truth that all men have not equally long fingers." I threw him out of the office. I did not want to understand his play on words, for I considered myself a true servant of God and valued my own opinion more than any one else's. I felt strange and fearful, as if the strength of my soul was vanishing. I had not sunk so low as to whine before God against man, for I was no Pharisee for all that I was a fool. I knelt before the holy Virgin of Abalatzk and looked up at her countenance and at her hands, which were uplifted to heaven. The little fire in the holy lamp flickered and a faint shadow spread over the ikon. The same shadow fell on my heart and something strange and invisible and oppressive rose up betwixt God and myself. I lost all joy in prayer, and I became wretched and even Olga was no longer a comfort to me. But she looked at me all the more kindly. I was eighteen at this time, a well developed youth, with red curly hair and a pale face. I wanted to come nearer her, yet was embarrassed, for I was innocent before women then. The women in the village laughed at me for it, and it even seemed to me at times that Olga herself smiled at me in a queer way. More than once the enticing thought came to me: "There, that's my wife." Day in, day out, I sat with her in the office in silence. When she asked me some questions about the business I answered, and in that lay our whole conversation. She was slender and white, like a young birch, and her eyes were blue and thoughtful. To me she seemed pretty and tender in her quiet, mysterious wistfulness. Once she asked me: "What makes you so sad, Matvei?" I had never spoken about myself with any one before, nor had ever wished to. But here suddenly my heart opened and I poured out all my misery to her. I told her of the shame of my birth, of the abuse that I suffered for it, and of the loneliness and wretchedness of my soul, and of her father. I told her everything. I did not do it to complain. It was only to unburden myself of my inmost thoughts, of which I had amassed quite a quantity--all worthless, I suppose. "I had better enter a monastery," I ended. She became depressed, hung her head and did not answer. I was pleased at her distress, but her silence hurt me. Three days later she said to me softly: