“Right,” I say; “here’s a letter for you.” At that point I am ready to pour the tea. “Do you take sugar? Lemon, maybe? I learned to drink tea with lemon in Russia. Would you like to try it?” Then I light a lamp and place it somewhat high in a distant corner, so that the twilight actually still remains in the room; but now it is a warmer twilight than before, a bit rosy. And then the face of my guest begins to look a bit more confident, warmer, and much more familiar to me. I greet him once more with the words: “You know, I’ve been expecting you for a long time.” And before the stranger has time to be surprised, I explain to him. “I know a story that I can tell to no one but you. Don’t ask me why. Just tell me if you’re comfortable in your chair, if the tea is sweet enough, and if you want to hear the story.”

My guest had to smile. Then he answered simply: “Yes.”

“Yes to all three?”

“To all three.”

We both leaned back in our chairs at the same time, so that our faces fell into shadow. I put down my tea glass, took pleasure in the golden glow of the tea, slowly forgot this pleasure, and suddenly asked, “Do you still remember God?”

The stranger thought about this. His eyes peered off into the darkness, so that with the small points of light in the pupils they looked like two leaf-sheltered allées in a park, above which shone bright, open summer and sun. These, too, then, beginning thus as dim rounds, extended in ever-narrowing darkness to a single glimmering point—the exit on the far side into perhaps much brighter daylight. As I was watching this, he said hesitantly, as though he were using his voice only reluctantly:

“Yes, I still remember God.”

“Good,” I thanked him, “because it just so happens that my story is about Him. But first tell me one more thing. Do you ever talk to children?”

“It does happen, in passing at least.”

“Perhaps you are already aware of the fact that, as a result of some ugly insubordination on the part of His hands, God doesn’t know what the finished human being actually looks like?”

“I once heard that somewhere, I no longer know from whom,” replied my guest. And I saw vague recollections chasing each other across his brow.

“It doesn’t matter,” I interrupted him, “just listen.”

For a long time, God put up with this uncertainty. For His patience is as great as His strength. But once, when thick clouds had been hanging between Him and the earth for days at a time, with the result that He no longer knew whether He might have just dreamed everything—the world and people and time—He called for His right hand, which for so long had been banished and hidden away in small, trivial tasks. It hurried eagerly to Him, for it thought that God finally wanted to forgive it. When God saw it before Him in its beauty, youth, and strength, He was in truth inclined to forgive it. But just in time, He remembered Himself and commanded without looking at it: