‘True, Lida, that’s true,’ her mother said.
In Lida’s presence she was always rather timid, glancing nervously at her when she spoke and afraid of saying something superfluous or irrelevant. And she never contradicted her:
‘True, Lida, that’s true,’ she always agreed.
‘Teaching peasants to read and write, books full of wretched maxims and sayings, clinics, cannot reduce either ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows cannot illuminate this huge garden,’ I said. ‘You contribute nothing by meddling in these people’s lives, you’re simply creating new needs and even more reasons for them to slave away.’
‘Oh, God! Surely something has to be done,’ Lida said irritably and from her tone I gathered that she considered my arguments trivial and beneath contempt.
‘The people must be freed from heavy physical work,’ I said. ‘We must lighten their yoke, they must have breathing-space, so that they don’t have to spend all their lives at the stove, wash-tub and in the fields, so that they have time to think of their souls, of God and thus develop their spiritual lives. Man’s true vocation is the life of the spirit, the constant search for truth, for the meaning of life. Liberate them from this rough, brutish labour, let them feel they are free – then you’ll see what a farce these dispensaries and books really are. Once a man recognizes his true vocation, only religion, science, art can satisfy him – not all this nonsense of yours.’
‘Free them from labour!’ Lida laughed. ‘Can that be possible?’
‘It can. You must take some of their labour on your own shoulders. If all of us town and country dwellers unanimously agreed to divide among ourselves the labour that is normally expended by humanity on the satisfaction of its physical needs, then each of us would probably have to work no more than two or three hours a day. Just imagine if all of us, rich and poor, worked only two or three hours a day and had the rest of the time to ourselves. Imagine if we invented labour-saving machines and tried to reduce our needs to the absolute minimum so as to be less dependent on our bodies and to be able to work even less. We would harden ourselves and our children so that they would no longer fear hunger or cold. We wouldn’t be constantly worrying about their health, unlike Anna, Mavra and Pelageya. Imagine if we no longer doctored ourselves, didn’t maintain dispensaries, tobacco factories, distilleries – how much more leisure time we’d finally have at our disposal! All of us, working together, would be able to devote our leisure to science and art. Just as peasants sometimes mend roads, working as a community, so all of us, as one big community, would search for the truth and the meaning of life: and the truth would be discovered very quickly, man would rid himself of this constant, agonizing, oppressive fear of death – and even from death itself – of that I’m convinced.’
‘But you’re contradicting yourself,’ Lida said. ‘You keep going on about science and art, yet you yourself reject literacy.’
‘The kind of literacy, when a man has nothing else to read except pub signs and sometimes books he doesn’t understand, has been with us since Ryurik’s time. Gogol’s Petrushka’s been able to read for absolutely ages, whereas our villages are exactly the same as they were in Ryurik’s time. It isn’t literacy that we need, but freedom to develop our spiritual faculties as widely as possible. We don’t need schools – we need universities.’
‘And you reject medicine as well?’
‘Yes. Medicine might be necessary for the study of diseases as natural phenomena, but not for their treatment. If you want to cure people you shouldn’t treat the illness but its cause. Take away the main cause – physical labour – and there won’t be any more diseases. I don’t recognize the healing arts,’ I continued excitedly. ‘Genuine science and art don’t strive towards temporary, personal ends, but towards the universal and eternaclass="underline" they seek truth and the meaning of life, they seek God, the soul. But if you reduce them to the level of everyday needs, to the mundane, to dispensaries and libraries, they only complicate life and make it more difficult. We have loads of doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, lots of people who can read and write, but there’s a complete lack of biologists, mathematicians, philosophers and poets. One’s entire intellect, one’s entire spiritual energy has been used up satisfying transient, temporary needs. Scholars, writers and artists are working away – thanks to them life’s comforts increase with every day. Our physical needs multiply, whereas the truth is still far, far off and man still remains the most predatory and filthy of animals and everything conspires towards the larger part of mankind degenerating and losing its vitality. In such conditions an artist’s life has no meaning and the more talented he is the stranger and more incomprehensible his role, since, on closer inspection, it turns out that, by supporting the existing order, he’s working for the amusement of this rapacious, filthy animal. I don’t want to work … and I shan’t! I don’t need a thing, the whole world can go to hell!’
‘Missy dear, you’d better leave the room,’ Lida told her sister, evidently finding my words harmful for such a young girl.
Zhenya sadly looked at her sister and mother and went out.
‘People who want to justify their own indifference usually come out with such charming things,’ Lida said. ‘Rejecting hospitals and schools is easier than healing people or teaching.’
‘That’s true, Lida, that’s true,’ her mother agreed.
‘Now you’re threatening to give up working,’ Lida continued. ‘It’s obvious you value your painting very highly! But let’s stop arguing. We’ll never see eye to eye, since I value the most imperfect of these libraries or dispensaries – of which you spoke so contemptuously just now – more highly than all the landscapes in the world.’ Turning to her mother she immediately continued in an entirely different tone of voice: ‘The prince has grown much thinner, he’s changed dramatically since he was last with us. They’re sending him to Vichy.’
She told her mother about the prince to avoid talking to me. Her face was burning and to hide her agitation she bent low over the table as if she were short-sighted, and pretended to be reading the paper. My company was disagreeable for them. I said goodbye and went home.
IV
It was quiet outside. The village on the far side of the pond was already asleep. Not a single light was visible, only the pale reflections of the stars faintly glimmered on the water. Zhenya stood motionless at the gates with the lions, waiting to see me off.
‘Everyone’s asleep in the village,’ I told her, trying to make out her face in the gloom – and I saw those dark, mournful eyes fixed on me. ‘The innkeeper and horse thieves are peacefully sleeping, while we respectable people quarrel and annoy one another.’
It was a sad August night – sad because there was already a breath of autumn in the air. The moon was rising, veiled by a crimson cloud and casting a dim light on the road and the dark fields of winter corn along its sides. There were many shooting stars. Zhenya walked along the road by my side, trying not to see the shooting stars, which frightened her for some reason.
‘I think you’re right,’ she said, trembling from the damp night air. ‘If people would only work together, if they could give themselves up to the life of the spirit they would soon know everything.’
‘Of course, we’re superior beings and if in fact we did recognize the full power of human genius and lived only for some higher end, then in the long run we’d all come to be like gods. But that will never happen – mankind will degenerate and not a trace of genius will remain.’