"You are silent," he said thoughtfully. "That is good. Let them do what they want, but you keep quiet. Others come to me and they talk--they talk very much. But I cannot understand what they want. They even talk about women. What is that to me? They talk about everything. But what they say about everything, I cannot understand. But you are right to keep silent. I also would not speak, but the Abbot up there said: 'Console him; he needs to be consoled.' Well, all right. But I myself would much rather not talk. "Oh, God, forgive them all! Everything was taken from me--only prayers remained to me. Whoever tortures you, take no notice of him. It is the devils who torture you. They tortured me, too. My own brother, he beat me, and my wife gave me rat's poison. Evidently I was only a rat to her. They stole all I had from me, then said that I set fire to the village. They wanted to throw me into the fire. And I sat in prison. Everything happened to me. I was judged--sat some more. God be with them. I pardoned every one--I was not guilty, yet I pardoned. That was for my own sake. "A whole mountain of injury lay on me. I could not breathe. Then I pardoned them and it went away. The mountain was no more. The devils were offended and they went away. So you, too, pardon every one. I need nothing. It will be the same with you." At the fourth interview he asked me: "Bring me a crumb of bread. I will suck it. I am weak. Pardon me, in Christ's name." My heart ached with pity for him. I listened to his ravings and I thought: "Why is that necessary, O Lord, why?" But he still rustled his dry tongue: "My bones ache. Night and day they draw. If I sucked a crumb it would be better perhaps; but this way my bones itch. It disturbs me--it disturbs my prayers. It is necessary to pray every second, even in one's dreams. If not, the devil immediately reminds one. He reminds one of one's name and where one lived, and everything. There he sits on the stove. It doesn't matter to him if it is hot--sometimes red hot. He is used to it. He sits himself there, a little, gray thing, opposite me, and just sits. I cross myself and do not look at him, and he gets tired. Then he crawls on the wall like a spider, or sometimes he floats in the air like a gray rag. He can do anything, my devil. He gets bored with an old man, but he has got to watch me, he has orders to. "Of course, it is not pleasant for him to watch an old man. I am not offended with him. The devil doesn't do it of his own free will, and I am used to him. 'Well,' I say to him, 41 am tired of you,' and I don't look at him. He is not bad or evil, only he continually reminds me of my name." Then the old man lifted his head and said loudly: "They called me Michail Petrov Viakhiref." And then he sank down in his coffin again and whispered: "Thus the devil tempts me. Oh, you devil! Are you still here, brother? Go, and God be with you."