Crumps

Shukov had gotten his breath back now and he looked up at the sky....
Shukov was glad they'd gotten off so easy, and he poked the Captain in the ribs, sort of kidding him. "Captain, tell me what it says in those books you've studied about what happens to the old moon when it goes down."
"What d'you mean? Where does it go? You're just ignorant. It's simply you can't see it!"
Shukhov shook his head and laughed. "But if you can't see it, how do you know it's there?"
"So you think" -- The Captain just looked at him -- "so you think we get a brand-new moon every month?"
"Well, don't we? if people are born every day, why shouldn't there be a brand-new moon every four weeks?"
"Come off it." The Captain spat. "I've never met such a dumb sailor in my life. Where d'you think the old one goes to?"
"Well, that's what I'm asking you, " Shukhov said, and you could see the gap in his teeth. 
"Well, you tell me."
Shukhov sighed and said with that funny lisp of his: "The old people at home used to say God breaks the old moon up into stars."
..... "Do you believe in God then, Shukhov?"
"And why not?" Shukhov said. "When he thunders up there in the sky, how can you help believe in Him?"
"And why does God do that?"
"Do what?"
"Break the moon into stars," the Captain said.
"Don't you see?" And Shukhov shrugged his shoulders. "The stars keep falling down, so you've got to have new ones in their place".

Lower Your Gaze

They heard somebody say it was twelve o'clock already.
"It must be," Shukhov said. "The sun's right overhead."
"If it's right overhead," The Captain shot back, "That means it's one o'clock, not twelve."
"How come?" Shukhov asked. "Any old man can tell you the sun is highest at noon."
"That's what the old guys say!" the Captain snapped.
"But since then, there's been a law passed and now the sun's highest at one."
"Who passed the law?"
"The Soviet Government!"

--  One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 -- Mikhail Larionov - A Dancer in Motion. 1915