Savva and the Life of Man Part 9

Let them practise virtue. A narrow-minded bunch. They lack breadth of vision.

LIPA

You say it as calmly as if you were joking.

SAVVA

No, I am not joking.

LIPA

Aren't you afraid?

SAVVA

I? So far I haven't been, and I don't ever expect to be. What worse can happen to a man than to have been born? It's like asking a man who is drowning whether he is not afraid of getting wet. _(Laughs)_

LIPA

So that's the kind you are.

SAVVA

One thing I learned from them: respect for dynamite. It's a powerful instrument, dynamite is--nothing like it for a convincing argument.

LIPA

You are only twenty-three years old. You have no beard yet, not even a moustache.

SAVVA _(feeling his face)_

Yes, a measly growth; but what conclusions do you draw from that?

LIPA

Fear will come to you yet.

SAVVA

No. If I haven't been frightened so far by watching life, there's nothing else to fear. Life, yes. I embrace the earth with my eyes, the whole of it, the entire little planetoid, and I can find nothing more terrible on it than man and human life. And I am not afraid of man.

LIPA _(scarcely listening to him; ecstatically)_

Yes, that's the word. That's it. Savva, dear, I am not afraid of bodily suffering either. Burn me on a slow fire. Cut me to pieces. I won't cry. I'll laugh. I know I will. But there is another thing I am afraid of. I am afraid of people's suffering, of the misery from which they cannot escape. When in the stillness of the night, broken only by the striking of the hours, I think of how much suffering there is all around us--aimless, needless suffering; suffering one doesn't even know of--when I think of that, I am chilled with terror. I go down on my knees and pray. I pray to G.o.d, saying to Him: "Oh, Lord, if there has to be a victim, take me, but give the people joy, give them peace, give them forgetfulness. Oh, Lord, all powerful as Thou art--"

SAVVA

Yes.

LIPA

I have read about a man who was eaten by an eagle, and his flesh grew again overnight. If my body could turn into bread and joy for the people, I would consent to live in eternal torture in order to feed the unfortunate. There'll soon be a holiday here in the monastery--

SAVVA

I know.

LIPA

There is an ikon of the Saviour there with the touching inscription: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden--

SAVVA

And I will give you rest." I know.

LIPA

It is regarded as a wonder-working ikon. Go there on the feast-day.

It's like a torrent pouring into the monastery, an ocean rolling toward its walls; and this whole ocean is made up entirely of human tears, of human sorrow and misery. Such monstrosities, such cripples.

After witnessing one of those scenes, I walk about as in a dream.

There are faces with such a depth of misery in them that one can never forget them as long as one lives. Why, Savva, I was a gay young thing before I saw all that. There is one man who comes here every year--they have nicknamed him King Herod--

SAVVA

He is here already. I've seen him.

LIPA

Have you?

SAVVA

Yes, he has got a tragic face.

LIPA

Long ago, when still a young man, he killed his son by accident, and from that day he keeps coming here. He has an awful face. And all of them are waiting for a miracle.

SAVVA

Yes. There is something worse than inescapable human suffering, however.

LIPA

What?

SAVVA _(lightly)_

Inescapable human stupidity.