hen the souls used to be brighter.
Before, everything was simpler--both the people and the sins, and now
everything has become complicated. Eh, eh!"

He made tea, seated himself opposite Foma and went on again:

"Your father at your age was a water-pumper and stayed with the fleet
near our village. At your age Ignat was as clear to me as glass. At a
single glance you could tell what sort of a man he was. While you--here
I am looking at you, but cannot see what you are. Who are you? You
don't know it yourself, my lad, and that's why you'll suffer. Everybody
nowadays must suffer, because they do not know themselves. Life is
a mass of wind-fallen trees, and you must know how to find your
way through it. Where is it? All are going astray, and the devil is
delighted. Are you married?"

"Not yet," said Foma.

"There again, you are not married, and yet, I'm quite sure, you are not
pure any longer. Well, are you working hard in your business?"

"Sometimes. Meanwhile I am with my godfather."

"What sort of work is it you have nowadays?" said the old man, shaking
his head, and his eyes were constantly twinkling, now turning dark,
now brightening up again. "You have no labour now! In former years
the merchant travelled with horses on business. Even at night, in
snowstorms, he used to go! Murderers used to wait for him on the road
and kill him. And he died a martyr, washing his sins away with blood.
Now they travel by rail; they are sending telegrams, or they've even
invented something that a man may speak in his office and you can hear
him five miles away. There the devil surely has a hand in it! A man
sits, without motion, and commits sins merely because he feels lonesome,
because he has nothing to do: the machine does all his work. He has
no work, and without toil man is ruined! He has provided himself with
machines and thinks it is good! While the machine is the devil's trap
for you. He thus catches you in it. While toiling, you find no time for
sin, but having a machine--you have freedom. Freedom kills a man,
even as the sunbeams kill the worm, the dweller of the depth of earth.
Freedom kills man!"

And pronouncing his words distinctly and positively, the old
Anany struck the table four times with his finger. His face beamed
triumphantly, his chest rose high, and over it the silver hair of his
beard shook noiselessly. Dread fell on Foma as he looked at him and
listened to his words, for there was a ring of firm faith i