"What does God want of you? Do you know? Aha!" It sounded like a cry of triumph out of the flood of his trembling words. Then again they poured out of his mouth tumultuously in disconnected whispers. Masha gazed astounded, open-mouthed at her friend and protector. Ilya wrinkled his brows. He was pained that he could not follow Jakov's words. He considered himself the cleverer, but Jakov constantly reduced him to wonder by his wonderful memory and the fluency with which he spoke on all kinds of difficult questions. If he became weary of listening silently, and too straitly caught by the heavy cloud that Jakov's words begot in him, then he used to interrupt the speaker angrily:
"Oh! shut up for any sake! What are you babbling of? You've read too much, that's the truth--do you understand yourself what you say?"
"But that's just what I'm saying, that I don't understand at all," answered Jakov, wounded and obstinate.
"Then say straight out I don't understand anything, instead of chattering like a maniac, while I've got to listen to you!"
"No, wait a minute," Jakov went on. "Everything is beyond our understanding. Take the lamp, for instance--I see there is fire in it, but where does the fire come from? One minute it's there and the next it's gone. You strike a match, it burns--then the fire must be in it all the time--or does it fly about in the air, invisible?"
Ilya let himself be attracted by this new question. His face lost its contemptuous expression, and looking at the lamp, he said:
"If it were in the air, then it would always be warm. But the match burns just the same in the frost, so it can't be in the air."
"But then, where is it?" and Jakov looked expectantly at his friend.
"It's in the match," Masha's voice struck in. But the two friends, absorbed in the weighty argument, let Masha's remark pass unperceived. She was quite used to the treatment and did not resent it.
"Where is it?" cried Jakov again excitedly.
"I don't know, and I don't want to know! I only know you'd better not put your hand in it, and that it is warm when you're near it. That's enough for me."
"Oh! how clever!" cried Jakov with lively displeasure. "I don't want to know. I can say that, any fool can. No, explain to me, where does the fire come from? Bread I can understand, the corn gives the grain, and from the grain comes the flour, and the dough from the flour, and there's the bread. But what is man born for?"