“Oh, naturally, I’ve taken only one little corner of the picture, but that corner is connected with everything by, so to speak, indissoluble bonds.”
“What, then, is to be done?”
“Ah, my God, don’t be in a hurry; it won’t all come so soon. Generally, it’s best to do nothing; at least your conscience is at peace, since you haven’t taken part in anything.”
“Eh, come on, talk business. I want to know precisely what I’m to do and how I’m to live.”
“What are you to do, my dear? Be honest, never lie, don’t covet your neighbor’s house, in short, read the ten commandments: everything’s written there for all time.”
“Come on, come on, that’s all so old, and besides—it’s just words, and I need action.”
“Well, if you’re quite overcome with boredom, try loving someone, or something, or even simply becoming attached to something.”
“You just laugh! And besides, what am I alone to do with your ten commandments?”
“But if you fulfill them, despite all your questions and doubts, you’ll be a great man.”
“Unknown to anyone.”
“Nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest.” 13
“No, you’re decidedly laughing!”
“Well, if you take it so much to heart, then it would be best to try and specialize quickly, take up construction or law; then you’ll be occupied with real and serious business, and you can settle down and forget about trifles.”
I said nothing—well, what could I get from that? And yet after each such conversation, I was more troubled than before. Besides, I saw clearly that there was always as if some mystery left in him; it was this that drew me to him more and more.
“Listen,” I interrupted him one day, “I always suspected that you were saying all this just so, from spite and out of suffering, but secretly, within yourself, it’s you who are a fanatic of some higher idea and are only hiding it or ashamed to admit it.”
“Thank you, my dear.”
“Listen, there’s nothing higher than being useful. Tell me, how can I be of greatest use at this given moment? I know you can’t decide that; but I’m only seeking your opinion: you tell me, and I’ll go and do as you tell me, I swear to you! Well, what is the great thought?”
“Well, to turn stones into bread—there’s a great thought.” 14
“The greatest? No, truly, you’ve pointed out a whole path; tell me, then: is it the greatest?”
“A very great one, my friend, a very great one, but not the greatest; great, but secondary, and only great in the given moment. Man eats and doesn’t remember it; on the contrary, he’ll say at once: ‘Well, so I’ve eaten, and now what do I do?’ The question remains eternally open.”
“You once talked about ‘Geneva ideas.’ I didn’t understand—what are ‘Geneva ideas’?”
“Geneva ideas—it’s virtue without Christ, my friend, today’s ideas, or, better to say, the idea of the whole of today’s civilization. 15In short, it’s—one of those long stories that are very boring to begin, and it would be much better if we talked about other things, and still better if we were silent about other things.”
“All you want to do is be silent!”
“My friend, remember that to be silent is good, safe, and beautiful.”
“Beautiful?”
“Of course. Silence is always beautiful, and a silent person is always more beautiful than one who talks.”
“But to talk as you and I do is, of course, the same as being silent. Devil take that sort of beauty, and furthermore, devil take that sort of profit!”
“My dear,” he said to me suddenly, in a somewhat changed tone, even with feeling and with a sort of special insistence, “my dear, I by no means want to seduce you with any sort of bourgeois virtue instead of your ideals, nor do I insist that ‘happiness is better than heroism’; on the contrary, heroism is higher than any happiness, and the capacity for it alone already constitutes happiness. So that’s settled between us. I respect you precisely for being able, in our soured time, to cultivate some sort of ‘idea of your own’ in your soul (don’t worry, I remember it very well). But all the same it’s impossible not to think about measure, too, because now you precisely want a resounding life, to set something on fire, to smash something, to rise higher than all Russia, to sweep over like a storm cloud and leave everyone in fear and admiration, and disappear into the North American States. Surely there’s something of that kind in your soul, and that’s why I consider it necessary to warn you, because I’ve sincerely come to love you, my dear.”
What could I get from that as well? Here there was only a worry about me, about my material fate; it spoke for the father, with his prosaic though kindly feelings; but was that what I needed, in view of the ideas for which every honest father should send his son even to his death, as the ancient Horatius sent his sons for the idea of Rome? 16
I often pestered him with religion, but here the fog was thickest of all. To the question, What am I to do in this sense? he replied in the stupidest way, as to a little boy: “You must believe in God, my dear.”
“Well, and what if I don’t believe in all that?” I once cried in irritation.
“Splendid, my dear.”
“How, splendid?”
“A most excellent sign, my friend; even the most trustworthy, because our Russian atheist, if only he’s a true atheist and has a bit of intelligence, is the best man in the whole world and always inclined to treat God nicely, because he’s unfailingly kind, and he’s kind because he’s immeasurably pleased that he’s an atheist. Our atheists are respectable people and trustworthy in the highest degree, the support, so to speak, of the fatherland . . .”
That, of course, was something, but not what I wanted; only once did he speak his mind, only so strangely that he surprised me most of all then, especially in view of all these Catholicisms and chains I had heard about in connection with him.
“My dear,” he said to me once, not at home, but one time in the street, after a long conversation; I was seeing him off. “My friend, to love people as they are is impossible. And yet one must. And therefore do good to them, clenching your feelings, holding your nose, and shutting your eyes (this last is necessary). Endure evil from them, not getting angry with them if possible, ‘remembering that you, too, are a human being.’ Naturally, you’re in a position to be severe with them, if it’s been granted you to be a little bit smarter than the average. People are mean by nature and love to love out of fear; don’t give in to such love and don’t cease to despise it. Somewhere in the Koran, Allah bids the prophet to look upon the ‘recalcitrant’ as mice, to do good to them and pass by—somewhat arrogant, but right. Know how to despise them even when they’re good, for most often it’s just here that they’re nasty. Oh, my dear, I’m judging by myself in saying that! He who is only a little bit better than stupid cannot live and not despise himself—whether he’s honest or dishonest makes no difference. To love one’s neighbor and not despise him is impossible. In my opinion, man is created with a physical inability to love his neighbor. There’s some mistake in words here, from the very beginning, and ‘love for mankind’ should be understood as just for that mankind which you yourself have created in your soul (in other words, you’ve created your own self and the love for yourself ), and which therefore will never exist in reality.”
“Never exist?”
“My friend, I agree that this would be rather stupid, but here the blame isn’t mine; and since I wasn’t consulted at the time of the creation of the world, I reserve for myself the right to have my own opinion about it.”
“How can they call you a Christian after that,” I cried, “a monk with chains, a preacher? I don’t understand!”
“But who calls me that?”
I told him; he listened very attentively, but stopped the conversation.
I simply can’t remember what occasioned this conversation, which was so memorable for me; but he even became irritated, which almost never happened with him. He had spoken passionately and without mockery, as if he weren’t saying it to me. But once again I didn’t believe him: could he really speak seriously about such things with the likes of me?