And the godson stopped and said to the robber, “People come to me not to boast of the evil they do, but to repent and pray for their sins to be forgiven them. You repent likewise, if you have the fear of God in your heart, and if you do not seek repentance, go away from this place and do not come back again, so as not to hinder me or scare away my people. If you fail to listen to my words God will punish you.” The robber laughed. “I am not afraid of your God and I won’t listen to you. You are not my master to order me about. You live by your piety, I by my robbery. We must all live. Teach the women who come to you, but let me alone. Since you have dared to mention the name of God to me I will kill two extra people to-morrow. I would kill you now, only I don’t want to soil my hands, but take care never to cross my path again.” The robber threatened him thus and rode away. He did not come again and the godson lived in the hermitage as before for another eight years. XI One night the godson set out to water his pieces of charcoal and when he had finished he sat down in his cell to rest. He peered along the path now and again to see if any visitor was coming, but no one came that day. The godson sat alone until evening and he grew lonesome and weary and began to think about his life. He recollected how the robber had reproached him for living by his piety. He began to look back upon his life. “I am not living as the hermit told me,” he thought. “The hermit imposed a penance on me and I have used it as a means of earning my bread and even gaining fame thereby. I have been so led astray over it that I am even dull when people do not come to see me, and when they do come, I rejoice when they praise my saintliness. This is not the way one must live. I have been blinded by fame. Not only have I not atoned for past sins but have taken new ones upon myself. I will go away to another place far into the wood, where the people will not find me, and I will live alone there and atone for my past sins, taking care not to commit new ones.” Thinking thus the godson took a bag of rusks and a spade, and he left the cell and set out down a ravine to build himself a mud hut in the thicket and disappear from people’s sight. The godson was walking along with his bag and spade when the robber jumped out upon him. The godson was afraid and would have run away, but the robber stopped him. “Where are you going?” he asked. The godson told him that he wanted to go away from people and bury himself in a wild part of the wood where no one would come to him. The robber wondered. “But what will you live on if no one comes to see you?” The godson had not thought of that, but now the robber had mentioned it he remembered that he had to eat. “On what God gives,” he said. The robber made no reply and went his way.