Leo Tolstoy

“ NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Yes, I too lived so—that is to say, without thinking why I lived; but a time came when I was terror-struck. Well, here we are, living on other people's labour—making others work for us—bringing children into the world and bringing them up to do the same. Old age will come, and death, and I shall ask myself: “Why have I lived?” In order to breed more parasites like myself? And, above all, we do not even enjoy this life. It is only endurable, you know, while, like Ványa, you overflow with life's energy.
MARY IVÁNOVNA. But everybody lives like that. ”

“ MARY IVÁNOVNA. You yourself often say that it fulfils itself despite man's opposition; but that's not the point. Tell me, what do you want of me?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Haven't I told you?
MARY IVÁNOVNA. But, Nicholas, you know that that is impossible. Only think, Lyúba is now getting married; Ványa is entering the university; Missy and Kátya are studying. How can I break all that off?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Then what am I to do?
MARY IVÁNOVNA. Do as you say one should do: have patience, love. Is it too hard for you? Only bear with us and do not take yourself from us! ”

“ BORÍS. I only say that truth is truth, and I can't help saying it.
PRINCESS. You of all people should not talk like that.
BORÍS. Why not?
PRINCESS. Because you are poor, and have nothing to give away. However, all this is not our business. [Exit, followed by all except Nicholas Ivánovich and Mary Ivánovna] .
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [sits pondering, then smiles at his own thoughts] Mary! What is all this for? Why did you invite that wretched, erring man? Why do those noisy women and that priest come into our most intimate life? Can we not settle our own affairs? ”

“ STYÓPA. Not take part in it? But our whole life is bound up with it.
BORÍS. That is why he says that the first step is to possess no property; to change our whole way of life and live so as not to be served by others but to serve others.
TÓNYA. Well, I see you have quite gone over to Nicholas Ivánovich's side.
BORÍS. Yes, I now understand it for the first time—after what I saw in the village.... You need only take off the spectacles through which we are accustomed to look at the life of the people, to realise at once the connection between their sufferings and our pleasures—that is enough! ”

“ NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. But who is proud? I, who consider myself a man like the rest of mankind, and one who therefore must live like the rest by his own labour and as poorly as his brother men, or those who consider themselves to be specially selected sacred people, knowing the whole truth and incapable of error; and who interpret Christ's words their own way?
FATHER GERÁSIM [offended] Pardon me, Nicholas Ivánovich, I did not come here to argue which of us is right, nor to receive an admonition, but I called, at Alexándra Ivánovna's request, to talk things over with you. ”

“ LYÚBA. I wonder if I had not better go to him.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. My dear, my darling, I know you find it hard and are frightened, though you should not be so. After all, I am a man who understands life. Nothing evil can happen. All that appears evil really makes one's heart more joyful; only understand that a man who has started on that path will have to choose, and it sometimes happens that God's side and the Devil's weigh so equally that the scales oscillate, and it is then that the great choice has to be made. ”

“ NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [hotly] There, that is the most terrible blasphemy! God has given us just one sacred tool for finding the truth—the only thing that can unite us all, and we do not trust it!
PRIEST. How can we trust in it, when there are contradictions?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Where are the contradictions? That twice two are four; and that one should not do to others what one would not like oneself; and that everything has a cause? Truths of that kind we all acknowledge because they accord with all our reason. ”

“ PRIEST. And how are the people to be guided—without any really definite truth?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. That's what is terrible! Each one of us has to save his own soul, and has to do God's work himself, but instead of that we busy ourselves saving other people and teaching them. And what do we teach them? We teach them now, at the end of the nineteenth century, that God created the world in six days, then caused a flood, and put all the animals in an ark, and all the rest of the horrors and nonsense of the Old Testament. ”

“ VÁNYA. Do come! [He runs off] .
407 NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. You don't wish to see eye to eye—nor to understand me.
MARY IVÁNOVNA. It is not that I don't wish to, but that I can't.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. No, you don't wish to, and we drift further and further apart. Only enter into my feelings; put yourself for a moment in my place, and you will understand. First, the whole life here is thoroughly depraved. You are vexed with the expression, but I can give no other name to a life built wholly on robbery; for the money you live on is taken from the land you have stolen from the peasants. ”

“ LYÚBA [seriously] No nonsense, please.
Alexándra Ivánovna, with her husband and Lisa, come out on to the verandah. Nicholas Ivánovich paces up and down wrapt in thought.
ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. Well, have you convinced her?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Alína, what is going on between us is very important. Jokes are out of place. It is not I who am convincing her, but life, truth, God: they are convincing her—therefore she cannot help being convinced, if not to-day then to-morrow, if not to-morrow ... It is awful that no one ever has time. Who is it that has just come? ”

“ STYÓPA. You never reply to one's arguments. I say that a man who saves, has a right to enjoy his savings. NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [smiling] I don't know which I am to reply to. [To Peter Semyónovich] It's true. One should not possess anything.
ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. 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 IVÁNOVICH. And it should be impossible to live as we do!
STYÓPA. In other words, we must die! Therefore, that teaching is unfit for life.... ”

“ BORÍS. Of course, for what happens within the soul must make a change in the outside world.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Well, I have said my say. Your mother is here. She is terribly upset. If you can do what she asks, do it—that is what I wished to say to you.
From the corridor outside hysterical weeping is heard. A Lunatic rushes in, followed by Warders who drag him out again.
LYÚBA. How terrible! And you will be kept here? [Weeps] .
BORÍS. I am not afraid of it, I'm afraid of nothing now! I feel so happy, the only thing I fear is what you feel about it. Do help me; I am sure you will! ”

“ NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Very well; but we first tried to prove the truth itself, and now we are trying to prove the reliability of the guardian of the truth.
PRIEST. Well here, as a matter of fact, we require faith.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Faith—yes, we need faith. We can't do without faith. Not, however, faith in what other people tell us, but faith in what we arrive at ourselves, by our own thought, our own reason ... faith in God, and in true and everlasting life.
PRIEST. Reason may deceive. Each of us has a different mind. ”

“ LISA. What could be better? It was wonderful.
LYÚBA. Schumann is good, but all the same Chopin takes a stronger hold of one's heart.
STYÓPA. He is more lyrical.
TÓNYA. There is no comparison.
LYÚBA. Do you remember his prelude?
TÓNYA. Oh, the one called the George Sand prelude? [Plays the commencement] .
LYÚBA. No, not that one. That is very fine, but so hackneyed. Do play this one. [Tónya plays what she can of it, and then breaks off] .
TÓNYA. Oh, that is a lovely thing. There is something elemental about it—older than creation.
STYÓPA [laughs] Yes, yes. Do play it. But no, you are too tired. ”

“ But even if nobody understood it, that would make no difference.
406 MARY IVÁNOVNA. Vasíly Nikonórovich has repented, and has got his living back, and Tónya is at this very moment dancing and flirting with Styópa.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. I am sorry to hear it, but it does not turn black into white, and it cannot change my life. Mary! You do not need me. Let me go! I have tried to share your life and to bring into it what for me constitutes the whole of life; but it is impossible. It only results in torturing myself and you. I not only torment myself, but spoil the work I try to accomplish. ”

“ 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—
STYÓPA. But no one is striking anybody!
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. 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. ”

“ NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Yes! Do not kill me, do not steal from me my stolen goods. We have all robbed the people, we have stolen their land and have then made a law forbidding them to steal it back; and the Church sanctions all these things.
FATHER GERÁSIM. Heresy and spiritual pride are speaking through you. You ought to conquer your intellectual pride.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. It is not pride. I am only asking you what should I do according to Christ's law, when I have become conscious of the sin of robbing the people and enslaving them by means of the land. How am I to act? ”

“ NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. The labour of others does not belong to me. To give him money, I must first take it from others. I have no right to do that, and I cannot do it! As long as I manage the estate I must manage it as my conscience dictates; and I cannot give the fruits of the toil of the overworked peasants to be spent on the debaucheries of Life-Guardsmen. ”

“ NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. That's impossible ——
MARY IVÁNOVNA. He has written to Lisa! She will show you the letter. That sort of conversion is very unstable. So also in Tónya's case; I won't even speak of that fellow Alexander Petróvich, who simply considers it profitable!
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [getting angry] Well, no matter. I only ask you to understand me. I still consider that truth is truth! All this hurts me very much. And here at home I see a Christmas-tree, a ball, and hundreds of roubles being spent while men are dying of hunger. I cannot live so. Have pity on me, I am worried to death. ”

“ LISA. True, quite true!
LYÚBA. If one lets oneself think about it, one can't live.
STYÓPA. Why? I don't see why the fact that people are poor should prevent one talking about Schumann. The one does not exclude the other. If one ...
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [angrily] If one has no heart, if one is made of wood ...
367 STYÓPA. Well, I'll hold my tongue.
TÓNYA. It is a terrible problem; it is the problem of our day; and we should not be afraid of it, but look it straight in the face, in order to solve it.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. We cannot wait for the problem to be solved by public measures. ”

“ ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. No? Not to you! Because you men have no religion.
PETER SEMYÓNOVICH. Do let me speak. I say that that is not the point. The point is this: if he denies the Church, what does he want the Gospels for?
MARY IVÁNOVNA. Well, so that we should live according to the Gospels and the Sermon on the Mount, and give everything away.
PETER SEMYÓNOVICH. But how is one to live if one gives everything away?
ALEXÁNDRA IVÁNOVNA. And where has he found in the Sermon on the Mount that we must shake hands with footmen? It says “Blessed are the meek,” but it says nothing about shaking hands! ”

“ Men wish to unite, and to that end devise all means of union, but neglect the one indubitable means of union—the search for truth! It is as if people in an enormous building, where the light from above shone down into the centre, tried to unite in groups around lamps in different corners, instead of going towards the central light, where they would naturally all be united. ”

“ NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. It is easy to say boldly, but I can't manage it.
CARPENTER. But why should your honour trouble to learn to be a carpenter? There are such a lot of us nowadays that we can hardly get a living as it is.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH [at work again] I'm ashamed to lead an idle life. ”

“ Christ accepted his oath by replying “I am.”
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Dear me! What are you saying? That is really absurd.
FATHER GERÁSIM. That is why the Church does not permit everyone to interpret the Gospel, lest he should go astray, but like a mother caring for her child gives him an interpretation suitable to his strength. No, let me finish! The Church does not lay on its children burdens too heavy for them to bear, but demands that they should keep the Commandments: love, do no murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery. ”

“ You love everyone else—the whole world, including that drunken Alexander Petróvich—but I still love you and cannot live without you. Why do you do it? Why? [Weeps] .
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. But you don't even wish to understand my life; my spiritual life.
MARY IVÁNOVNA. I do wish to understand it, but I can't. I see that your Christianity has made you hate your family and hate me; but I don't understand why!
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. You see the others do understand!
MARY IVÁNOVNA. Who? Alexander Petróvich, who gets money out of you?
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. He and others: Tónya and Vasíly Nikonórovich. ”