you only mean it might be? That isan important point,” said Evgenie Pavlovitch.
“It is accursed, certainly accursed!” replied the clerk, vehemently.
“Don’t go so fast, Lebedeff; you are much milder in the morning,” saidPtitsin, smiling.
“But, on the other hand, more frank in the evening! In the eveningsincere and frank,” repeated Lebedeff, earnestly. “More candid, moreexact, more honest, more honourable, and... although I may show you myweak side, I challenge you all; you atheists, for instance! How are yougoing to save the world? How find a straight road of progress, you menof science, of industry, of cooperation, of trades unions, and all therest? How are you going to save it, I say? By what? By credit? What iscredit? To what will credit lead you?”
“You are too inquisitive,” remarked Evgenie Pavlovitch.
“Well, anyone who does not interest himself in questions such as thisis, in my opinion, a mere fashionable dummy.”
“But it will lead at least to solidarity, and balance of interests,” said Ptitsin.
“You will reach that with nothing to help you but credit? Withoutrecourse to any moral principle, having for your foundation onlyindividual selfishness, and the satisfaction of material desires?Universal peace, and the happiness of mankind as a whole, being theresult! Is it really so that I may understand you, sir?”
“But the universal necessity of living, of drinking, of eating--inshort, the whole scientific conviction that this necessity can only besatisfied by universal co-operation and the solidarity of interests--is,it seems to me, a strong enough idea to serve as a basis, so to speak,and a ‘spring of life,’ for humanity in future centuries,” said GavrilaArdalionovitch, now thoroughly roused.
“The necessity of eating and drinking, that is to say, solely theinstinct of self-preservation...”
“Is not that enough? The instinct of self-preservation is the normal lawof humanity...”
“Who told you that?” broke in Evgenie Pavlovitch.
“It is a law, doubtless, but a law neither more nor less normal thanthat of destruction, even self-destruction. Is it possible thatthe whole normal law of humanity is contained in this sentiment ofself-preservation?”
“Ah!” cried Hippolyte, turning towards Evgenie Pavlovitch, and lookingat him with a queer sort of curiosity.
Then seeing that Radomski was laughing, he began to laugh himself,nudged Colia, who was sitting beside him, with his elbow, and againasked what time it was. He even pulled Colia’s silver watch out of hishand, and looked at it eagerly. Then, as if he had forgotten everything,he stretched himself out on the sofa, put his hands behind his head, andlooked up at the sky. After a minute or two he got up and came backto the table to listen to Lebedeff’s outpourings, as the latterpassionately commentated on Evgenie Pavlovitch’s paradox.
“That is an artful and traitorous idea. A smart notion,” vociferatedthe clerk, “thrown out as an apple of discord. But it is just. You are ascoffer, a man of the world, a cavalry officer, and, though not withoutbrains, you do not realize how profound is your thought, nor how true.Yes, the laws of self-preservation and of self-destruction are equallypowerful in this world. The devil will hold his empire over humanityuntil a limit of time which is still unknown. You laugh? You do notbelieve in the devil? Scepticism as to the devil is a French idea, andit is also a frivolous idea. Do you know who the devil is? Do you knowhis name? Although you don’t know his name you make a mockery of hisform, following the example of Voltaire. You sneer at his hoofs, athis tail, at his horns--all of them the produce of your imagination! Inreality the devil is a great and terrible spirit, with neitherhoofs, nor tail, nor horns; it is you who have endowed him with theseattributes! But... he is not the question just now!”
“How do you know he is not the question now?” cried Hippolyte, laughinghysterically.
“Another excellent idea, and worth considering!” replied Lebedeff. “But,again, that is not the question. The question at this moment is whetherwe have not weakened ‘the springs of life’ by the extension...”
“Of railways?” put in Colia eagerly.
“Not railways, properly speaking, presumptuous youth, but the generaltendency of which railways may be considered as the outward expressionand symbol. We hurry and push and hustle, for the good of humanity!‘The world is becoming too noisy, too commercial!’ groans some solitarythinker. ‘Undoubtedly it is, but the noise of waggons bearing bread tostarving humanity is of more value than tranquillity of soul,’ repliesanother triumphantly, and passes on with an air of pride. As for me, Idon’t believe in these waggons bringing bread to humanity. For, foundedon no moral principle, these may well, even in the act of carrying breadto humanity, coldly exclude a considerable portion of humanity fromenjoying it; that has been seen more than once.”
“What, these waggons may coldly exclude?” repeated someone.
“That has been seen already,” continued Lebedeff, not deigning tonotice the interruption. “Malthus was a friend of humanity, but, withill-founded moral principles, the friend of humanity is the devourer ofhumanity, without mentioning his pride; for, touch the vanity of one ofthese numberless philanthropists, and to avenge his self-esteem, he willbe ready at once to set fire to the whole globe; and to tell the truth,we are all more or less like that. I, perhaps, might be the first to seta light to the fuel, and then run away. But, again, I must repeat, thatis not the question.”
“What is it then, for goodness’ sake?”
“He is boring us!”
“The question is connected with the following anecdote of past times;for I am obliged to relate a story. In our times, and in our country,which I hope you love as much as I do, for as far as I am concerned, Iam ready to shed the last drop of my blood...
“Go on! Go on!”
“In our dear country, as indeed in the whole of Europe, a famine visitshumanity about four times a century, as far as I can remember; once inevery twenty-five years. I won’t swear to this being the exact figure,but anyhow they have become comparatively rare.”
“Comparatively to what?”
“To the twelfth century, and those immediately preceding and followingit. We are told by historians that widespread famines occurred in thosedays every two or three years, and such was the condition of things thatmen actually had recourse to cannibalism, in secret, of course. One ofthese cannibals, who had reached a good age, declared of his own freewill that during the course of his long and miserable life he hadpersonally killed and eaten, in the most profound secrecy, sixty monks,not to mention several children; the number of the latter he thought wasabout six, an insignificant total when compared with the enormous massof ecclesiastics consumed by him. As to adults, laymen that is to say,he had never touched them.”
The president joined in the general outcry.
“That’s impossible!” said he in an aggrieved tone. “I am oftendiscussing subjects of this nature with him, gentlemen, but for themost part he talks nonsense enough to make one deaf: this story has nopretence of being true.”
“General, remember the siege of Kars! And you, gentlemen, I assure youmy anecdote is the naked truth. I may remark that reality, although itis governed by invariable law, has at times a resemblance to falsehood.In fact, the truer a thing is the less true it sounds.”
“But could anyone possibly eat sixty monks?” objected the scoffinglisteners.
“It is quite clear that he did not eat them all at once, but in aspace of fifteen or twenty years: from that point of view the thing iscomprehensible and natural...”
“Natural?”
“And natural,” repeated Lebedeff with pedantic obstinacy. “Besides, aCatholic monk is by nature excessively curious; it would be quite easytherefore to entice him into a wood, or some secret place, on falsepretences, and there to deal with him as said. But I do not dispute inthe least that the number of persons consumed appears to denote a spiceof greediness.”
“It is perhaps true, gentlemen,” said the prince, quietly. He hadbeen liste
ning in silence up to that moment without taking part in theconversation, but laughing heartily with the others from time to time.Evidently he was delighted to see that everybody was amused, thateverybody was talking at once, and even that everybody was drinking.It seemed as if he were not intending to speak at all, when suddenlyhe intervened in such a serious voice that everyone looked at him withinterest.
“It is true that there were frequent famines at that time, gentlemen.I have often heard of them, though I do not know much history. But itseems to me that it must have been so. When I was in Switzerland I usedto look with astonishment at the many ruins of feudal castles perchedon the top of steep and rocky heights, half a mile at least abovesea-level, so that to reach them one had to climb many miles of stonytracks. A castle, as you know, is, a kind of mountain of stones--adreadful, almost an impossible, labour! Doubtless the builders wereall poor men, vassals, and had to pay heavy taxes, and to keep up thepriesthood. How, then, could they provide for themselves, and whenhad they time to plough and sow their fields? The greater number must,literally, have died of starvation. I
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