Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
will be very difficult to say this to himself; it requires a rare
combination of unusual circumstances. Now, on the other
side, take the Church’s own view of crime: is it not bound to
renounce the present almost pagan attitude, and to change
from a mechanical cutting off of its tainted member for the
preservation of society, as at present, into completely and
honestly adopting the idea of the regeneration of the man,
of his reformation and salvation?’
‘What do you mean? I fail to understand again,’ Miusov
interrupted. ‘Some sort of dream again. Something shape-
less and even incomprehensible. What is excommunication?
What sort of exclusion? I suspect you are simply amusing
yourself, Ivan Fyodorovitch.’
‘Yes, but you know, in reality it is so now,’ said the elder
suddenly, and all turned to him at once. ‘If it were not for
the Church of Christ there would be nothing to restrain the
criminal from evil-doing, no real chastisement for it after-
wards; none, that is, but the mechanical punishment spoken
of just now, which in the majority of cases only embitters
the heart; and not the real punishment, the only effectual
one, the only deterrent and softening one, which lies in the
recognition of sin by conscience.’
‘How is that, may one inquire?’ asked Miusov, with lively
curiosity.
‘Why,’ began the elder, ‘all these sentences to exile with
hard labour, and formerly with flogging also, reform no
one, and what’s more, deter hardly a single criminal, and
the number of crimes does not diminish but is continu-
ally on the increase. You must admit that. Consequently