But here another gentleman appeared, starting up suddenly like a rubber ball against a fence. He was a strong, short, bold fellow, with round eyes like an owl's, a bent nose, light curls, a bushy beard and teeth which shone in a continual smile. He amused all the monks with his jokes and his shameless stories about women. At night he had them come to the monastery, smuggled in vodka without end, and was marvelously handy at everything. I looked at him and said: "What do you seek in a monastery?" "I? Things to gobble." "Bread is given to those who work." "That," he answered, "is a commandment from the peasants' God, but I am a man from the town and have also served two years in the Council, and can count myself as one of the authorities." I tried to understand this jester, for I had to see all the springs which moved different kinds of people. As I became more used to my work, Misha grew lazier, went off somewhere or other, and although it was more difficult for me alone, still it was more pleasant. People came freely to the bakery and we talked. Mostly we were three--Grisha, I and; oily Seraphim. Grisha would be excited and threatened me with his hands; Seraphim would whistle and shake his curls and smile. Once I asked him: "Seraphim, you vagabond, do you believe in God?" "I will tell you later," he answered. "Wait about thirty years. When I am in my sixties, I suppose I will know exactly what I believe. At present I understand nothing and I don't want to lie." He would tell us about the sea. He spoke about it as about a great miracle, using marvelous words, now quiet and loud; now with fear, and with love. And he glowed all over with joy which made him look like a star. When we listened to him we were silent and even heavy at heart at his stories of this vast, live beauty. "The sea," he said with passion, "is the blue eye of earth which looks out to the far heaven and meditates on infinite space. On its waves, which are as alive and sensitive as the soul, is reflected the play of the stars and their secret path; and if you watch for a long time the ebb and the flow of the sea, then the sky, too, appears like a far-off ocean, and the stars like islands." Grisha listened, all pale, and smiled quietly, as if a moonbeam were playing on him, and he whispered sadly: "And before the countenance of this mystery and beauty we only barter--nothing more." At other times Seraphim would tell us about the Caucasus. He pictured to us a land gloomy and exquisite, like a fairyland, where hell and heaven embraced, and were at peace, both equal and both proud in their majesty.