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 of the brilliant planet which he had seen rising over the birches; "but, seeing the stars change place, and not being able to imagine the revolution of the earth, then I should be right in saying that they moved. Could the astronomers have made any calculations, and gained any knowledge, if they had taken into consideration the varied and complicated motions of the earth? Have not their marvelous conclusions as to the distances, the weight, the motions, and revolutions of the celestial bodies all been based on the apparent movements of the stars around a motionless earth,—these very movements which I now witness, as millions of men for centuries have witnessed them, and which can always be verified? And just as the conclusions of the astronomers would have been inaccurate and false if they had not been based on their observations of the heavens such as they appeared relatively to a single meridian and a single horizon, so all my conclusions as to the knowledge of good and evil would be inaccurate and false if they were not founded on that comprehension of good and evil which for all men always has been and always will be one and the same, and which Christianity has revealed to me and which my soul can always verify. The relations of human belief to God must, for me, remain unfathomable; to search them out belongs not to me."

"Haven't you gone in yet?" said Kitty's voice, suddenly. She was on her way to the drawing-room by the way of the terrace. "There's nothing that troubles you, is there?" asked she, looking wistfully up into her husband's face and trying to study its expression by the starlight. By the light of a flash of lightning on the horizon, she saw that he was calm and happy, and she smiled.

"She understands me," thought he. "She knows what I am thinking. Shall I tell her, or not? Yes, I will tell her."

But just as he was about to speak, Kitty broke in.

"Kostia," said she, "do be so kind and go to the corner room and see how they have arranged for Sergyeï