" The people make sacrifices and are ready to make sacrifices for their soul, but not for murder," he added, instinctively connecting the conversation with the ideas that had been absorbing his mind.

"For their soul? That's a most puzzling expression for a natural science man, do you understand? What sort of thing is the soul?" said Katavasov, smiling.

"Oh, you know!" "No, by God, I haven't the faintest idea!" said Katavasov with a loud roar of laughter.

"'I bring not peace, but a sword,' says Christ," Sergey Ivanovitch rejoined for his part, quoting as simply as though it were the easiest thing to understand the very passage that had always puzzled Levin most.

"That's so, no doubt," the old man repeated again.