"There was a man in the land of Uz," began Mayakin, in a hoarse
voice, and Foma, sitting beside Luba on the lounge in the corner
of the room, knew beforehand that soon his godfather would become
silent and pat his bald head with his hand. He sat and, listening,
pictured to himself this man from the land of Uz. The man was tall
and bare, his eyes were enormously large, like those of the image
of the Saviour, and his voice was like a big brass trumpet on which
the soldiers played in the camps. The man was constantly growing bigger
and bigger; and, reaching the sky, he thrust his dark hands into the
clouds, and, tearing them asunder, cried out in a terrible voice:

"Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath
hedged in?"

Dread fell on Foma, and he trembled, slumber fled from his eyes,
he heard the voice of his godfather, who said, with a light
smile, now and then pinching his beard:

"See how audacious he was!"

The boy knew that his godfather spoke of the man from the land of
Uz, and the godfather's smile soothed the child. So the man would
not break the sky; he would not rend it asunder with his terrible
arms. And then Foma sees the man again--he sits on the ground,
"his flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust, his skin is
broken." But now he is small and wretched, he is like a beggar at
the church porch.

Here he says: