He tried to speak to her, while thinking at the same time with a shudder: "O Lord! That is a puppet.

A mother doll.

And there is a soldier-puppet, and there, at home, is a father-puppet, and this is the puppet of Vasily Kashirin." It seemed to him that in another moment he would hear somewhere the creaking of the mechanism, the screeching of un-oiled wheels.

When his mother began to cry, something human again flashed for an instant, but at the very first words it disappeared again, and it was interesting and terrible to see that water was flowing from the eyes of the doll.
Then, in his cell, when the terror had become unbearable, Vasily Kashirin attempted to pray.

Of all that had surrounded his childhood days in his father's house under the guise of religion only a repulsive, bitter and irritating sediment remained; but faith there was none.