"Though I do not see God," I answered, "still I feel Him and do not question His existence, but only try to understand His laws, upon which our earth is based." "As for the laws," he said, "look in the book on Canonical Rights, and if you feel God then--I shall congratulate you." He poured out some wine, clinked glasses with me and drank. I noticed that, though his face was as grave as that of a corpse, the beautiful eyes of the gentleman mocked at me. The fact that he was a gentleman began to lessen my feelings for him, for he unfolded his birth to me so often that he made me boil with anger. When he was somewhat drunk, he liked to speak about women. "Nature," he would say, "has kept us in an evil and heavy bondage through woman, its sweetest allurement; and had we not this carnal temptation, which saps out the best from the soul of man, he could have attained immortality." Since Brother Misha had spoken about the same theme, though more heatedly, I was disgusted by this time with such thoughts. Misha had renounced woman with hatred and defamed her furiously; but Father Anthony adjudged her without any feelings and tiresomely. "Do you remember," he said, "I once gave you a book? If you read it you must have seen how woman in her whole make-up is cunning and full of lies, and debauched to the very bottom." It was strange, and it hurt me to hear man, born of woman and nourished with her life, besmirch and trample upon his own mother, denying her everything but the flesh; degrading her to a senseless animal. At times I expressed my thoughts to him, though vaguely; not so distinctly. He became outraged and shouted. "Idiot! Was I talking about my own mother?" "Every woman is a mother," I answered. "There are some," he shouted, "who are only loose women all their lives." "Well," I answered, "there are some who are hunchbacked; but that is not the law for all." "Get out of here, fool!" Evidently the officer was not dead in him. Several times when I asked about God, we wrangled with each other. He angered me with his sly wit, and one evening I went at him with all my might. My character grew bad, for I passed through great suffering at this time. I circled around Anthony like a hungry man around a locked pantry; he smells the bread through the door, and it only tends to madden him. And the night to which I refer, his evasions enraged me. I caught up the knife from the table and cried: "Tell me everything you believe or I will cut my throat, come what may!" He became frightened, grabbed my hand, wrenched the knife from me and grew very much excited--not at all like himself. "You should be punished for this," he said, "but no punishment ever helps fanaticism." And then he added, and his words were like nails beaten into my head: "This is what I will tell you: only man exists. Everything else is an opinion. Your God is a dream of your soul. You can only know yourself, and even that not certainly."