When I said this to K. I heard, to my regret, the same stereotyped and indecent answer: 

“The devil take it!”

All I could do was to shrug my shoulders.  Suddenly changing his tone and bearing, the artist turned to me seriously with a question which, in my opinion, was also indecent: 

“Why do you lie, old man?”

I was astonished, of course.

“I lie?”

“Well, let it be the truth, if you like, but why?  I am looking and thinking.  Why did you say that?  Why?”

My indulgent reader, who knows well what the truth has cost me, will readily understand my profound indignation.  I deliberately mention this audacious and other calumnious phrases to show in what an atmosphere of malice, distrust, and disrespect I have to plod along the hard road of suffering.  He insisted rudely: 

“I have had enough of your smiles.  Tell me plainly, why do you speak so?”

Then, I admit, I flared up: 

“You want to know why I speak the truth?  Because I hate falsehood and I commit it to eternal anathema!  Because fate has made me a victim of injustice, and as a victim, like Him who took upon Himself the great sin of the world and its great sufferings, I wish to point out the way to mankind.  Wretched egoist, you know only yourself and your miserable art, while I love mankind.”

My anger grew.  I felt the veins on my forehead swelling.

“Fool, miserable dauber, unfortunate schoolboy, in love with colours!  Human beings pass before you, and you see only their froglike eyes.  How did your tongue turn to say such a thing ?  Oh, if you only looked even once into the human soul!  What treasures of tenderness, love, humble faith, holy humility, you would have discovered there!  And to you, bold man, it would have seemed as if you entered a temple—­a bright, illuminated temple.  But it is said of people like you—­’do not cast your pearls before swine.’”

The artist was silent, crushed by my angry and unrestrained speech.  Finally he sighed and said: 

“Forgive me, old man; I am talking nonsense, of course, but I am so unfortunate and so lonely.  Of course, my dear old man, it is all true about the divine spark and about beauty, but a polished boot is also beautiful.  I cannot, I cannot!  Just think of it!  How can a man have such moustaches as he has ?  And yet he is complaining that the left moustache is shorter!”

He laughed like a child, and, heaving a sigh, added: 

“I’ll make another attempt.  I will paint the lady.  There is really something good in her.  Although she is after all—­a cow.”

He laughed again, and, fearing to brush away with his sleeve the drawing on the slate, he cautiously placed it in the corner.

Here I did that which my duty compelled me to do.  Seizing the slate, I smashed it to pieces with a powerful blow.  I thought that the artist would rush upon me furiously, but he did not.  To his weak mind my act seemed so blasphemous, so supernaturally horrible, that his deathlike lips could not utter a word.