Meanwhile I am with my godfather." "What sort of work is it you have nowadays ?" said the old man, shaking his head, and his eyes were constantly twinkling, now turning dark, now brightening up again.

"You have no labour now! In former years the merchant travelled with horses on business.

Even at night, in snowstorms, he used to go! Murderers used to wait for him on the road and kill him.

And he died a martyr, washing his sins away with blood.
Now they travel by rail; they are sending telegrams, or they've even invented something that a man may speak in his office and you can hear him five miles away.

There the devil surely has a hand in it! A man sits, without motion, and commits sins merely because he feels lonesome, because he has nothing to do: the machine does all his work.