Page 482 - the-brothers-karamazov

up and down the earth and under the earth. ‘And hast thou
considered my servant Job?’ God asked of him. And God
boasted to the devil, pointing to His great and holy servant.
And the devil laughed at God’s words. ‘Give him over to
me and Thou wilt see that Thy servant will murmur against
Thee and curse Thy name.’ And God gave up the just man
He loved so, to the devil. And the devil smote his children
and his cattle and scattered his wealth, all of a sudden like
a thunderbolt from heaven. And Job rent his mantle and
fell down upon the ground and cried aloud, ‘Naked came I
out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return into the
earth; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed
be the name of the Lord for ever and ever.’
Fathers and teachers, forgive my tears now, for all my
childhood rises up again before me, and I breathe now as I
breathed then, with the breast of a little child of eight, and I
feel as I did then, awe and wonder and gladness. The camels
at that time caught my imagination, and Satan, who talk-
ed like that with God, and God who gave His servant up
to destruction, and His servant crying out: ‘Blessed be Thy
name although Thou dost punish me,’ and then the soft and
sweet singing in the church: ‘Let my prayer rise up before
Thee,’ and again incense from the priest’s censer and the
kneeling and the prayer. Ever since then — only yesterday
I took it up — I’ve never been able to read that sacred tale
without tears. And how much that is great, mysterious and
unfathomable there is in it! Afterwards I heard the words
of mockery and blame, proud words, ‘How could God give
up the most loved of His saints for the diversion of the devil,

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