I kneaded one trough, began another, and when that was done, started on the wheat, which is kneaded with the hands. I was a strong fellow, but was not used to the work. The flour filled my nose, my mouth, my ears and eyes, so that I became deaf and blind; and the sweat kept dropping from my forehead into the dough. "Haven't you a piece of cloth," I asked, "to wipe the sweat off?" Misha became raging mad. "We will get you velvet towels. The monastery has been standing 230 years, and has only been waiting for your new orders." I had to laugh, unwillingly. "I am not kneading the dough for myself," I said. "There are others who have to eat the bread." He walked up to me, bristling like a porcupine and every part of him trembling. "Take a sack and wipe yourself, if you are so tender. But I will tell the Abbot about your impudence." I was so surprised at this man that I could not be angry at him. He worked unceasingly, and the heavy two-hundred sacks were like little pillows in his hands. He was covered with flour, grumbled, swore and urged me on continually. "Hurry! Hurry!" I hurried till my head swam. CHAPTER IX The first days of my cloistral novitiate were not easy. The bakery was in the cellar under the refectory; the ceiling was low and vaulted, and its one window was nailed tightly. The air was suffocating. The dust from the flour hung in the cellar like a thick mist, in which Misha trotted back and forth like a bear on a chain. The flame in the oven burned unclearly; it was a nightmare, not work. Only we two were down there, for it was seldom that any one was sent as a punishment to help us. There was no time even to attend religious services. Day after day Misha preached his sermon to me, and I felt as if I were being bound with stout ropes. He was all aflame and burned with wrath against the world, while I breathed in his words and I felt that my inmost heart was covered with soot. "You have nothing more to do with man," he said. "They continue to commit sins out there in the world, but you have left the world forever. If you separated from it with your body, then you must also flee it in spirit. You must forget it. If you think of man, you think unwillingly of woman. And through woman the world has sunk into darkness and sin and is bound eternally." I wanted to say something, but no sooner did I open my mouth than he shouted at me: "Keep still! Listen attentively to what an experienced man has to say, and respect your elders! I know you were going to blab something about the mother of God again. But it was just on account of her that Christ died on the crucifix--because He was born of woman, and did not descend holy and pure from heaven. He was altogether too good to that nasty woman all his life, and he should have pushed the Samaritan into the well instead of conversing with her. And He should have been the first to throw a stone at the sinner. Then the world would have been free."