(^12741275)
Sergey Ivanovitch interrupted him.
“Every member of society is called upon to do his own special
work,” said he. “And men of thought are doing their work when they
express public opinion. And the single-hearted and full expression of
public opinion is the service of-the press and a phenomenon to rejoice
us at the same time. Twenty years ago we should have been silent, but
now we have heard the voice of the Russian people, which is ready to
rise as one man and ready to sacrifice itself for its oppressed brethren;
that is a great step and a proof of strength.”
“But it’s not only making a sacrifice. but killing Turks,” said Levin
timidly. “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. He was stand-
ing near them and responded to a chance glance turned in his direc-
tion.
“Ah, my dear fellow, you’re defeated, utterly defeated!” cried
Katavasov good-humoredly.
Levin reddened with vexation, not at being defeated, but at hav-
ing failed to control himself and being drawn into argument.
“No, I can’t argue with them,” he thought; “they wear impenetrable
armor, while I’m naked.”
He saw that it was impossible to convince his brother and Katavasov,
and he saw even less possibility of himself agreeing with them. What
they advocated was the very pride of intellect that had almost been his
ruin. He could not admit that some dozens of men, among them his
brother, had the right, on the ground of what they were told by some
hundreds of glib volunteers swarming to the capital, to say that they
and the newspapers were expressing the will and feeling of the people,
and a feeling which was expressed in vengeance and murder. He
could not admit this, because he neither saw the expression of such
feelings in the people among whom he was living, nor found them in
himself (and he could not but consider himself one of the persons
making up the Russian people), and most of all because he, like the
people, did not know and could not know what is for the general good,
though he knew beyond a doubt that this general good could be at-
tained only by the strict observance of that law of right and wrong
which has been revealed to every man, and therefore he could not wish
for war or advocate war for any general objects whatever. He said as
Mihalitch did and the people, who had expressed their feeling in the
traditional invitations of the Varyagi: “Be princes and rule over us.
Gladly we promise complete submission. All the labor, all humilia-
tions, all sacrifices we take upon ourselves; but we will not judge and
decide.” And now, according to Sergey Ivanovitch’s account, the people
had foregone this privilege they had bought at such a costly price.
He wanted to say too that if public opinion were an infallible guide,
then why were not revolutions and the commune as lawful as the
movement in favor of the Slavonic peoples? But these were merely
barré
(Barré)
#1