"And that he should chance upon me," replied the doctor. "I, gentlemen, am a deist, a philosopher, but a passable Catholic. Often it happens that I assail the church just as I assail Poland whenever anything occurs which displeases me. Only if some stranger does the same thing in my presence then--a strange thing!--I have a desire to knock out his teeth. Therefore I began to defend the Church as if I never in my life crawled out of a sacristy; bah, even better, in a way as if I was a Catholic apologist. 'If,' I said, 'religion is only an external form tell me just why should we abandon this form of ours, which is the most spiritualized, the most cultural, and the most beautiful. That Catholicism, with which you advise us to take our leave, has encompassed the entire West, organized society, produced European civilization, preserved learning, has founded universities, reared churches, which are masterpieces, gave us Saint Augustine, Dante, Petrarch, Saint Francis, and Saint Thomas, created the Renaissance, created Leonardo da Vinci's; "Lord's Supper," Michelangelo's "Tombs of the Medici," Raphael's "School of Athens" and "Disputa," erected such temples as Saint Peter's, not counting others scattered throughout Italy and all over Europe. That Catholicism made us partakers of the universal culture, united us with the West, imprinted a European stamp upon our Polish soul, etc., etc.' And I talked in this strain until he interrupted me and said. 'In this is the misfortune, that it has united you with the West.' And I replied to that, 'A misfortune to whom, and to whom not a misfortune? But now we will speak of your proposition of renouncing the tongue and therefore the nationality. Know, sir, that this is an empty and foolish dream. That never will take place. I proclaim and insist in advance--never! But assuming for a moment an impossible thing, that a pestilence will so blight us, that our hearts will be so debilitated that we will say to ourselves "Enough!--we can no longer be Poles!" then what? Reflect, sir, objectively, like a man who has not lost the ability to think, what could restrain us from becoming Germans? Our Slavonic extraction? But we are Slavonians, just because we are Poles. You are a people who do not know how to live and do not permit anybody else to live. So what motive would keep us with you? Is it your peace? Your welfare? Your morality? Your administration? Your science? Your learning? Your wealth? Your power? Learn to look in the eyes of reality; cultivate in yourselves the ability to reckon with it, and you will understand that by denationalizing us you labor for some one else. But I reiterate yet once more that this is only a foolish dream; that the moment of renunciation will never come and if I spoke of it, it was only to answer those things which you suggested.'