I understood that I had acted foolishly, but I did not want to stop.
"I did not want to see your passports," I said. "I wanted to see your thoughts."
"Thoughts? Right away, Your Excellency. Thoughts, forward!" And he laughed like a stallion.
Mikhail, who was making the tea, said calmly:
"I know why you came. You are not the first one whom Juna has sent us. He knows people and never sends empty men."
The uncle felt my forehead with his palm and laughed:
"Please look more gay. Don't show your trumps right away, or you may lose."
They evidently considered themselves men rich in soul and that I was a beggar compared to them. They did not hurry to quench my hungry heart with their wisdom. I became angry and wanted to quarrel, but I could find no reason; and that angered me still more. I asked at random:
The uncle answered: "A man who can fill up with anything you wish."
Suddenly Mikhail went up quietly to me and said, in a soft voice:
But I became confused at my answer. It was not true. Did I really believe?
"Don't you see," he said, "that they are created in the image of God?"
The uncle, the devil take him, smiled like a copper basin in the sun.
"With such people," I thought to myself, "one must argue sincerely and if I should fall asunder in little pieces, they will gather me up again."
"When I look upon people," I said, "I doubt the power of God."
Again it was not right. I doubted God before I ever saw the people.
Mikhail looked at me thoughtfully, with wise eyes, and the uncle walked heavily up and down the room, stroking his beard, and grunting low to himself.
It made me uneasy that I had to lower myself to lie before them. I saw my soul with remarkable clearness and my thoughts raced through me stupidly and alarmed like a frightened bee-hive. I began to drive them out of me, irritated. I wished to empty myself.
I spoke for a long time without connecting my words. I spoke at random on purpose. If they were such wise people, let them gather the sense themselves. I became tired and asked passionately: "How can you heal my sick soul?"
Mikhail answered low, without looking at me:
The uncle laughed again, and it pealed out as if a demon had come in through the roof.
"To be sick," Mikhail continued, "is when a man is not conscious of himself, but knows only his pain and lives in it. But you, it is plain, have not lost yourself. You are seeking happiness in life, and only a healthy man does that."