He is looking silently, and You are silent, and Your eyes are closed--I shall speak for the three of us, a sure sign that our peace will never be broken." They were silent, and, continuing, I addressed my speech to the portrait: "Where are you looking so intently and so strangely, my unknown friend and roommate?
In your eyes I see mystery and reproach.

Is it possible that you dare reproach Him?
Answer!" And, pretending that the portrait answered, I continued in a different voice with an expression of extreme sternness and boundless grief: "Yes, I do reproach Him.

Jesus, Jesus! Why is Your face so pure, so blissful?
You have passed only over the brink of human sufferings, as over the brink of an abyss, and only the foam of the bloody and miry waves have touched You.

Do You command me, a human being, to sink into the dark depth?
Great is Your Golgotha, Jesus, but too reverent and joyous, and one small but interesting stroke is missing--the horror of aimlessness!" Here I interrupted the speech of the Portrait, with an expression of anger.
"How dare you," I exclaimed; "how dare you speak of aimlessness in our prison ?" They were silent; and suddenly Jesus, without opening His eyes--He even seemed to close them more tightly--answered: "Who knows the mysteries of the heart of Jesus ?" I burst into laughter, and my esteemed reader will easily understand this laughter.

It turned out that I, a cool and sober mathematician, possessed a poetic talent and could compose very interesting comedies.
I do not know how all this would have ended, for I had already prepared a thundering answer for my roommate when the appearance of the keeper, who brought me food, suddenly interrupted me.