On the High Road (Merik)
Merik says
Aaa… greybeard! You skeleton! You needn’t go to the churchyard to see ghosts, when they get up from under the floor to give advice to their relations…. A sin!… Don’t you teach people your silly notions! You’re an ignorant lot of people living in darkness…. My father was peasant and used to be fond of teaching people. One night he stole a sack of apples from the village priest, and he brings them along and tells us, “Look, children, mind you don’t eat any apples before Easter, it’s a sin.” You’re like that…. You don’t know what a devil is, but you go calling people devils…. Take this crooked old woman, for instance. She sees an enemy in me, but is her time, for some woman’s nonsense or other, she’s given her soul to the devil five times.