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208 The Gospel in Dostoyevskymuch more than you can put into words…Still you sound as ifyou were feverish…”This last remark slipped from my lips inadvertently as I staredat his shining eyes and his face, which had grown even paler.But I don’t believe he heard me.“You know, my boy,” he said, as if pursuing a thought that hadbeen interrupted, “there’s a limit to how long a man is rememberedon this earth. It’s about a hundred years, that limit. Lessthan a hundred years after a man’s death he may still be rememberedby his children or perhaps his grandchildren who haveseen his face, but after that time, even if his name is still remembered,it’s only indirectly, from other people’s words, and it’s justan idea about him, because all those who have seen him alivewill by then be dead too. And grass will grow over his grave inthe cemetery, the white stone over him will crumble, and everyonewill forget him, including his own descendants, because onlyvery few names remain in people’s memory. So that’s all right – letthem forget! Yes, go on, forget me, dear ones, but me, I’ll go onloving you even from my grave. I can hear, dear children, yourcheerful voices and I can hear your steps on the graves of yourfathers; live for some time yet in the sunlight and enjoy yourselveswhile I pray for you, and I’ll come to you in your dreams…Death doesn’t make any difference, for there’s love after deathtoo!”“You see, I used to be terribly afraid at first of those learnedpeople, of those professors,” Makar, who must have said somethingabout professors before, went on, with his eyes slightlylowered. “Ah, the way they used to scare me! I didn’t dare sayanything to them because there was nothing I was more afraidof than an atheist. I have only one soul, I used to say to myself,and if I lose it, I’ll never find another. But later I was no longer