It was unmistakably a subject they had discussed more than once before.

" What harm has been done by the false interpretation of that passage! Nothing holds men back from belief like that misinterpretation.

'I have not works, so I cannot believe,' though all the while that is not said.

But the very opposite is said.

" "Striving for God, saving the soul by fasting," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, with disgusted contempt, "those are the crude ideas of our monks....