"Such is man," the Cossack said, lowering his head. "The laws of God are like spiritual milk, but they come down to us skimmed. It is written, 'With a pure heart you will see God.' But how can your heart be pure if you do not live according to your own will? Without one's freedom there is no true faith, but only a fictitious one." He arose, shook himself and looked about him. He was a square-built fellow. "We are not free enough before God; that is what I think." He took his cap and went away, and I remained alone, as if glued to the earth. I wished to grasp the meaning of the Cossack's words, but I could not. Still, I felt that they were right. The warm southern night caressed me, and I thought to myself: "Is it possible that only in suffering is the human soul beautiful? Where is the pivot around which this human whirlwind moves? What is the meaning of this vanity?" In winter I always went south, where it was warmer; but if the snow and the cold caught me in the north, then I always entered a monastery. At first the monks did not receive me in a friendly way, but when I showed them how I worked they accepted me readily. They liked to see a man work well and not take any money. My feet rested, while my arms and my head worked. I remembered all that I saw during the summer, and I desired to draw out of it some clean food for my soul. I weighed, I extracted, I wanted to understand the reasons for things, and at times I became so confused that I could have wept. I felt overfed with the groans and the sorrows of the earth, and the boldness of my soul vanished and I became morose, silent, and an anger arose in me against everything. From time to time dark despair took hold of me, and for weeks I lived as if in a dream or blind. I desired nothing and saw nothing. I began to wonder if I should not stop this wandering and live as every one else, and stop puzzling over my riddles, and subject myself humbly to conditions of things which were not of my making. My days were as dark as the night, and I stood alone on the earth, like the moon in heaven, except that I gave no light. I could stand apart from myself and watch myself. I saw myself on the cross-ways, a healthy young fellow, who was a stranger to every one, and whom nothing pleased, and who believed in no one. Why did he live? Why was he apart from the world? My soul became chilled. CHAPTER XVII I also went to nunneries for a week or two, and in one of them, on the Volga, I hurt my foot with an ax one day while chopping wood. Mother Theoktista, a good little old woman, nursed me. The monastery was not large, but rich, and the sisters all had a prosperous and dignified appearance. They irritated me, with their sweetness and their honied smiles and their fat crops.