The Light Shines in Darkness Part 4

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. No, thank you. I have had something. Where is Mary?

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. Feeding Baby.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Is she quite well?

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. Pretty well. Have you done your business?

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. I have. Yes. If there _is_ any tea or coffee left, I will have some. [To Priest] Ah! you've brought the book back. Have you read it? I've been thinking about you all the way home.

Enter man-servant, who bows. Nicholas Ivanovich shakes hands with him. Alexandra Ivanovna shrugs her shoulders, exchanging glances with her husband.

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. Re-heat the samovar, please.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. That's not necessary, Alina. I don't really want any, and I'll drink it as it is.

Missy, on seeing her father, leaves her croquet, runs to him, and hangs round his neck.

MISSY. Papa! Come with me.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH [caressing her]. Yes, I'll come directly. Just let me eat something first. Go and play, and I'll soon come.

Exit Missy.

Nicholas Ivanovich sits down to the table, and eats and drinks eagerly.

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. Well, were they sentenced?

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Yes! They were. They themselves pleaded guilty. [To Priest] I thought you would not find Renan very convincing ...

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. And you did not approve of the verdict?

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH [vexed]. Of course I don't approve of it. [To Priest]

The main question for you is not Christ's divinity, or the history of Christianity, but the Church ...

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. Then how was it? _They_ confessed their guilt, _et vous leur avez donne un dementi_?[23] They did not steal them--but only took the wood?

[23] And you contradicted them.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH [who had begun talking to the priest, turns resolutely to Alexandra Ivanovna]. Alina, my dear, do not pursue me with pinp.r.i.c.ks and insinuations.

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. But not at all ...

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. And if you really want to know why I can't prosecute the peasants about the wood they needed and cut down ...

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. I should think they also need this samovar.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Well, if you want me to tell you why I can't agree with those people being shut up in prison, and being totally ruined, because they cut down ten trees in a forest which is considered to be mine ...

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. Considered so by everybody.

PETER SEMYoNOVICH. Oh dear! Disputing again.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Even if I considered that forest mine, which I cannot do, we have 3000 acres of forest, with about 150 trees to the acre. In all, about 450,000 trees--is that correct? Well, they have cut down ten trees--that is, one 45-thousandth part. Now is it worth while, and can one really decide, to tear a man away from his family and put him in prison for that?

STYoPA. Ah! but if you don't hold on to this one 45-thousandth, all the other 44,990 trees will very soon be cut down also.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. But I only said _that_ in answer to your aunt. In reality I have no right to this forest. Land belongs to everyone; or rather, it can't belong to anyone. We have never put any labour into this land.

STYoPA. No, but you saved money and preserved this forest.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. How did I get my savings? What enabled me to save up? And I didn't preserve the forest myself! However, this is a matter which can't be proved to anyone who does not himself feel ashamed when he strikes at another man--

STYoPA. But no one is striking anybody!

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Just as when a man feels no shame at taking toll from others' labour without doing any work himself, you cannot prove to him that he ought to be ashamed; and the object of all the Political Economy you learnt at the University is merely to justify the false position in which we live.

STYoPA. On the contrary; science destroys all prejudices.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. However, all this is of no importance to me. What is important is that in Yefim's[24] place I should have acted as he did, and I should have been desperate had I been imprisoned. And as I wish to do to others as I wish them to do to me--I cannot condemn him, but do what I can to save him.

[24] Yefim was the peasant who had cut down the tree.

PETER SEMYoNOVICH. But, if one goes on that line, one cannot possess anything.

Alexandra Ivanovna and Styopa--

Both speak together

{ ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. Then it is much more profitable to steal than to { work.

{ { STYoPA. You never reply to one's arguments. I say that a man who { saves, has a right to enjoy his savings.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH [smiling] I don't know which I am to reply to. [To Peter Semyonovich] It's true. One should not possess anything.

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. But if one should not possess anything, one can't have any clothes, nor even a crust of bread, but must give away everything, so that it's impossible to live.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. And it should be impossible to live as we do!

STYoPA. In other words, we must die! Therefore, that teaching is unfit for life....

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. No. It is given just that men may live. Yes. One should give everything away. Not only the forest we do not use and hardly ever see, but even our clothes and our bread.

ALEXaNDRA IVaNOVNA. What! And the children's too?

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Yes, the children's too. And not only our bread, but ourselves. Therein lies the whole teaching of Christ. One must strive with one's whole strength to give oneself away.

STYoPA. That means to die.

NICHOLAS IVaNOVICH. Yes, even if you gave your life for your friends, that would be splendid both for you and for others. But the fact is that man is not solely a spirit, but a spirit within a body; and the flesh draws him to live for itself, while the spirit of light draws him to live for G.o.d and for others: and the life in each of us is not solely animal, but is equipoised between the two. But the more it is a life for G.o.d, the better; and the animal will not fail to take care of itself.