Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/235

 Rh gaily, Kiryusha, Kiryusha! Where are you? Come out quickly; they won't flog you. The inspector has come and we have been allowed to go out for a walk.

"Your miracle," I said, "is a very simple one."

"It is simple, Vladyko, as simple as the Trinity in Unity—a simple entity," he answered, and added with indiscribable joy in his eyes: "But, Vladyko, how I felt Him! How He came to me, O, my Father, the little Comforter! How He surprised and rejoiced me! You can judge for yourself. He who enfolds the whole universe, seeing the childish grief of a small boy, under the bench in the bath-house, crept up, bringing fresh coolness to his soul, and came to dwell in his little bosom."

I must confess to you, that above all the representations of the Deity, I love most this Russian God of ours Who creates for Himself a dwelling "in the little bosom." Yes—whatever those Greeks may say, and however much they may try to prove that it is to them we owe our knowledge of God, yet it was not they who revealed them to us, it was not in their magnificent Byzantinism or in the smoke of incense-burners that we discovered Him. But He is verily our own and He walks about everywhere quite simply in our own way, even under the benches of the bath-house; without frankincense He comes, entering into the