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From the Life of the Elder Zossima 183doing wrong, but there’s no turning back. Now I dare not lovemy neighbor nor even my own children. Good God, my childrenwill understand, perhaps, what my punishment has cost me andwill not condemn me! God is not in strength but in truth.”“All will understand your sacrifice,” I said to him, “if not atonce, they will understand later; for you have served truth, thehigher truth, not of the earth.”And he would go away seeming comforted, but next day hewould come again, bitter, pale, sarcastic.“Every time I come to you, you look at me so inquisitively asthough to say, ‘He has still not confessed!’ Wait a bit longer – don’tdespise me too much. It’s not such an easy thing to do as youthink. Perhaps I shall not do it at all. You won’t go and informagainst me then, will you?”And far from looking at him with indiscreet curiosity, I wasafraid to look at him at all. I was quite ill from anxiety, and myheart was full of tears. I could not sleep at night.“I have just come from my wife,” he went on. “Do you understandwhat the word ‘wife’ means? When I went out the childrencalled to me, ‘Goodbye, Father, come back quickly to read TheChildren’s Magazine with us.’ No, you don’t understand that! Noone is wise from another man’s woe.”His eyes were glittering, his lips were twitching. Suddenly hestruck the table with his fist so that everything on it danced – itwas the first time he had done such a thing; he was such a mildman.“But need I?” he exclaimed. “Must I? No one has been condemned,no one has been sent to Siberia in my place, the mandied of fever. And I’ve been punished by my sufferings for theblood I shed. And I shan’t be believed; they won’t believe myproofs. Need I confess, need I? I am ready to go on suffering all