Chap­ter IV intro­duces a reflec­tive exchange that pulls back the cur­tain on the household’s moral under­pin­nings. Anisim, five days after his wed­ding, read­ies him­self for depar­ture and choos­es to speak with Var­vara one last time. Their con­ver­sa­tion unfolds slow­ly under the warm glow of lamps and the faint fra­grance of incense, set­ting a tone that con­trasts the weight of their words. Var­vara knits qui­et­ly, her nee­dles click­ing like a metronome to their dis­course, and speaks with­out anger but with dis­ap­point­ment. She ques­tions the family’s method of doing busi­ness, point­ing out the dis­hon­esty behind their prosperity—how prof­it often came at the cost of another’s hard­ship. Her tone is steady, but the mes­sage cuts deep, sug­gest­ing that wealth with­out con­science erodes not only oth­ers but also the soul of the house­hold.

Anisim, tak­en aback, defends their approach by assert­ing that peo­ple must focus on their own roles. His response lacks warmth, brush­ing past the eth­i­cal dilem­ma as if it were a logis­ti­cal prob­lem, not a human one. Var­vara lis­tens and then offers a more endur­ing truth—God’s jus­tice can­not be dodged by com­part­men­tal­iz­ing duties. Her words car­ry the weight of con­vic­tion, and for a moment, silence hov­ers between them. Anisim reacts not with under­stand­ing but with doubt. He ques­tions God’s exis­tence out­right, reveal­ing his inter­nal unrav­el­ing. The absence he felt dur­ing his wed­ding wasn’t about the rit­u­als or the crowd—it was the empti­ness of mean­ing. His dis­il­lu­sion­ment is not just with faith, but with the entire scaf­fold­ing of moral oblig­a­tion built around it.

What fol­lows is Anisim’s cri­tique of those who use reli­gion to mask moral fail­ures. He points out that priests deliv­er ser­mons with no fire in their hearts, and believ­ers quote Scrip­ture with­out liv­ing it. This hypocrisy, in his view, has made con­science a rel­ic rather than a guide. Anisim’s tone shifts from defen­sive to philo­soph­i­cal, voic­ing a cri­sis that stretch­es beyond the per­son­al. The prob­lem isn’t bro­ken traditions—it’s the ero­sion of self-hon­esty. Peo­ple, he believes, no longer know what’s right because they’ve stopped lis­ten­ing to the qui­et voice inside them. That silence, more than any law or rit­u­al, is what has tru­ly damned their vil­lage. His bit­ter­ness isn’t only towards oth­ers; it’s laced with the frus­tra­tion of his own spir­i­tu­al vacan­cy.

Var­vara responds not with argu­ment, but with com­pas­sion. Her pres­ence becomes an anchor, offer­ing a kind of faith that doesn’t rely on lofty beliefs but on dai­ly acts of love and duty. Anisim soft­ens. He thanks her—not just polite­ly, but with gen­uine respect—recognizing her strength and steadi­ness as a rare good in a life full of noise. His words hint at regret, masked by prac­ti­cal­i­ty, as he asks her to com­fort his father if things turn for the worse. He does not spec­i­fy what awaits him, but the ambi­gu­i­ty sug­gests dan­ger, maybe even guilt. In that moment, Anisim becomes more than a cynic—he becomes some­one afraid of what might fol­low next.

Before leav­ing, he speaks of Lipa with a strange detach­ment, ask­ing Var­vara to show her affec­tion. The request feels sud­den but sin­cere, reveal­ing that beneath his argu­ments and ideals lies a man unsure of how to be close to any­one. He under­stands the val­ue of kind­ness but can­not seem to extend it him­self. That con­tra­dic­tion gives depth to his char­ac­ter, show­ing that dis­il­lu­sion­ment doesn’t always hard­en the heart—it some­times just con­fus­es it. The con­ver­sa­tion clos­es with no dra­mat­ic cli­max, only a lin­ger­ing sense of uncer­tain­ty. As Anisim steps out into the world, the chap­ter leaves read­ers with a sense of qui­et fore­bod­ing, wrapped in ques­tions of faith, truth, and what it means to do right when belief itself is in doubt.

This chap­ter lingers in the read­er’s mind not because of events, but because of its moral and emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty. The dia­logues between Anisim and Var­vara are not just fam­i­ly talk—they are philo­soph­i­cal argu­ments wrapped in domes­tic clothes. In a time where exter­nal suc­cess masks inter­nal decay, their exchange reminds us that real virtue might lie not in the loud rit­u­als or pub­lic actions, but in the silent deci­sions we make when no one is watch­ing. And in that still­ness, we are all, like Anisim, left to decide whether we believe that good­ness needs a witness—or if it’s enough for it to sim­ply exist.