When Princess Márya began to cry, he understood that she was crying at the thought that Nikolúshka would be left without a father. With a great effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their point of view.

“Yes, to them it must seem sad!” he thought. “But how simple it is.”

“The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father feedeth them,” he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Márya; “but no, they will take it their own way, they won’t understand! They can’t understand that all those feelings they prize so⁠—all our feelings, all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary . We cannot understand one another,” and he remained silent.