No More Learning

MR. Z. Pardonme. Howoldareyou?
PRINCE. Whatever do you mean by this question ? MR. Z. Nothing offensive, I can assure you. I
presume you are not less than thirty, are you ? PRINCE. Guess higher !
MR. Z. So you must have assuredly had some occasion to see, or if not to see then to hear, or if not to hear then at least to read in the papers, that malicious and immoral things do happen in this world.
PRINCE. Well?
MR. Z. How is it then? Does it not prove that
"the moral order/' or the will of God, obviously does not manifest itself in the world by its own
power ?
POLITICIAN. Now we are at last getting to busi-
ness. If evil exists, the gods, it follows, either cannot or will not suppress it, and in both cases the gods, as omnipotent and beneficent powers, do not exist at all. Tis old but true !
LADY. Oh, what awful things you are saying ! GENERAL. Talking does lead one to great dis-
coveries. Only begin philosophising, and your feeble brain reels.
PRINCE. A poor philosophy this ! good and evil.
As if the will of God were bound up with our ideas of what is
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MR. Z. With some of our ideas it is not, but with
the true notion of good it is bound up most firmly.
Otherwise, if God is generally indifferent to good
and evil, you then utterly refute your own argument. PRINCE. How is that, I should like to know?
MR. Z. Well, if you hold that God is not con-
cerned when a powerful blackguard, swayed by his brute passions, crushes a poor feeble creature, then
God is even more likely to have no objection if any one of us, actuated by human sympathy, crushes
the blackguard. You will surely not attempt to defend the absurdity that only killing a weak and
inoffensive being is not evil before the eyes of God, whereas killing a strong and wicked beast is evil.
PRINCE. It appears to you as an absurdity only because you look at it from the wrong point of view.
From the moral standpoint the real importance attaches not to one who is killed, but to one who
kills. Just now you yourself called the blackguard
a beast, that is, a being lacking in intelligence and conscience. If so, what evil can there be in his
actions ?
LADY. But don't you see that it is not a beast in
the literal sense of the word as used here? As if
I were to say to my daughter :
" What nonsense
you
are talking, my angel," and you were to get up and
:
begin shouting at me " How ridiculous a thing to
How can
all the arguments ! . . .
talk nonsense ?
"
say !
angels
Well, of PRINCE. I crave your forgiveness. I understand
? 26 SOLOV1EV
perfectly well that the villain is called a beast only in a metaphorical sense, and that this beast has neither tail nor hoofs. But it is evident that the lack of intelligence and conscience is referred to here in its literal meaning; for it would be impos- sible for a man with intelligence and conscience to commit such acts.
MR. Z. Yet another play on words ! Naturally, a man acting as a beast loses his intelligence and conscience in the sense that he is no longer moved by them. But that intelligence and conscience do not speak within him at all you still have to prove. In the meanwhile, I continue to think that a bestial man differs from me and you not by the absence of
intelligence and conscience, but only by his willing- ness to act against them, and in accord with the im-
pulseofthebeastwithinhim. Withineveryoneof
us lurks the beast, but we usually keep him tightly chained; whilsttheothermanloosensthechain,only to be dragged along at the tail of the beast. He has the chain, but fails to make proper use of it.
GENERAL. Precisely. And if the Prince still dis- agrees with you he is hoist with his own petard ! "The villain," the Prince says, "is only a beast withoutintelligenceandconscience. " Thenkilling
him is the same as killing a wolf, or a tiger spring-
ing at a man. Why, this sort of thing is permitted even by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals !
PRINCE. But you forget again that whatever the
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state of mind of that man may be, whether it be
completely devoid of intelligence and conscience, or whether it be consciously and wilfully immoral, if such is possible, it is not he who really matters, but you; your intelligence and conscience are not
destroyed and you do not want consciously to go against their demands well then, you would not
kill that man, whatever he might have been.
MR. Z. Naturally, I would not kill him, should
my intelligence and conscience absolutely forbid
my doing so. Imagine, however, that intelligence and conscience tell me something entirely different
something which seems to be more sensible and morally correct.
Let us hear it. MR. Z. We may assume first of all that intelli- gence and conscience know how to count, at least,
uptothree. . .
GENERAL. Go on, go on !
MR. Z. Therefore intelligence and conscience, if they do not wish to lie to me, will not keep on telling me "two" when the actual number is "three" . . .
GENERAL (impatiently). Well?
PRINCE. I can't see what he is driving at !
MR. Z. Well, don't you assert that intelligence and conscience speak to me only about myself and the villain? The whole matter, according to your argument, is that I should not lay a finger on him. But in point of fact there is present also a third
PRINCE. This sounds interesting !
? 28 SOLOVIEV
person whoisactuallythemostimportantofall the victim of the wicked assault, who requires my
help. You wilfully neglect her, but conscience speaks of her too, and of her even in preference to the others. And if the will of God is involved here at all, it is only in the sense that I should save the
victim, sparing the villain as much as possible. But help her I must at any cost and in any case by
persuasion, if it be possible ; if not by force. And should my hands be tied, then and only then can I
call to my aid that supreme resource which was sug-
gested by you too prematurely and then too lightly cast aside the supreme resource of Prayer, that is,
by an appeal to the Divine Intelligence, which, I am sure, can really perform miracles when they arenecessary. Whichofthesemeansofhelpshould be used depends entirely on the internal and external conditionsoftheincident. Theonlyabsolutething here is, that I must help those who are wronged. This is what my conscience says.
GENERAL. The enemy's centre is broken through ! Hurrah !
PRINCE. My conscience has progressed beyond
this elementary stage. My conscience tells me in
a case like this something more definite and concise :
""
and that is all. However, I can't see even now that we have moved any farther
in our argument. Suppose I agree with your proposi- tion that everybody, even a morally cultured and truly conscientious man, could permit himself to
Don't kill
!
it
says,
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commit a murder, acting under the influence of sym- pathy and having no time to consider the moral character of his action even admitting all this, I am still utterly unable to see what could follow from this admission that would enlighten us with regard
toourprincipalproblem. Letmeaskyouagain:
"
Did Tamerlane, or Alexander the Great, or Lord Kitchener kill and make others kill people in order to protect weak, defenceless beings from the vil-
"
lainous assaults that were threatening them ?
MR. Z. The juxtaposition of Tamerlane and Alexander the Great augurs ill for our historical accuracy, but as this is the second time that you have appealed to historical facts, allow me to quote from history an illustration which will really help us to
compare the question of the defence of a person with that of the defence of a State. The affair hap-
pened in the twelfth century, at Kiev. The feuda- tory princes, who as early as that seemed to hold your ideas on war and believed that one may quarrel
"
and fight only
the field against the Polovtziens, saying that they were reluctant to subject their people to the horrors of war. To this the great Prince Vladimir Mono-
: machansweredinthefollowingwords "Youpity
the serf, but you forget that when spring comes the serf will go out to the field. " . . .
LADY. Please don't use bad words !
MR. Z. But this is from a chronicle.
LADY. That makes no difference. I am sure you
chez soi," would not agree to take
? 30 SOLOVIEV
don't remember the chronicle by heart, so may just as well put it in your own words. It sounds so
absurd. Onehears" willcome"and Spring
expects "the flowers will blossom and the nightingales will
"l sing," but instead all of a sudden comes serf. "
MR. Z. As you please, madam. " The spring will come, the peasant will go out into the field withhishorsetotilltheland. ThePolovtzienwill come, will kill the peasant, will take away his horse. Then a formidable band of Polovtziens will make an inroad, will slaughter all the men, capture their wives and children, drive away their cattle, and burn out their homes. Can't you find it in your heart to pity the peasants for this ? I do pity them, and for that reason I call upon you to take up arms against the Polovtziens. " The princes, ashamed of themselves, listened to his words, and the country
enjoyed peace throughout the reign of Vladimir Monomach. Afterwards, however, they turned back
to their "peaceful professions," which urged them to evade war with foreign enemies in order that they
could carry on in comfort their miserable quarrels in their own homes. The end of it all for Russia was the Mongolian yoke, and for the descendants of these princes that rich feast of experience which
history provided them in the person of Ivan the Terrible.
PRINCE. Your argument is absolutely beyond me !
1 The Russian word "smerd" equivalent
(serf, slave, &c. ) suggests something stinking. (Translator. )
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At one moment you describe an incident which has
never happened to any one of us, and will certainly neveroccurinthefuture. Atanothermomentyou remind us of some Vladimir Monomach, who per- haps never existed, and who, at any rate, has absolutely nothing to do with us. . . .
LADY. Paries pour vous, monsieur!
MR. Z. Tell me, Prince, are you a descendant of Rurik?
PRINCE. People say so. But do you suggest that I should for this reason take special interest in
Rurik, Sineus, and Truvor? 1
LADY. I think when one does not know one's
ancestors one is little better than the little boys and girls who believe that they were found in the garden
under a cabbage-leaf.
PRINCE. And what are those poor devils to do
who have no ancestors?
MR. Z. Everybody has at least two great ances-
tors, who have bequeathed to posterity their circum- stantial and highly instructive records : the history of one's country and that of the world.
PRINCE. But these records cannot decide for us how we should live now, and what we should now do. Let it be granted that Vladimir Monomach actually existed, that he was not merely the creation of the imagination of the monk Laurentius, or the monk Hypathius. He may even have been an
1 The legendary founders of the Russian State. (Trans- lator. )
? 32 SOLOVIEV
exceptionally good man, and may have sincerely
"
serf. " In such case he was right in righting the Polovtziens, because in those barbaric times the moral consciousness had not yet risen
above the crude Byzantine notion of Christianity, and actually approved of man-killing when it was
for a good purpose, real or imaginary. But how can we do so, when we have once understood that
murder is an evil thing, opposed to the will of God and forbidden since the days of Moses by God's commandment ? Under no guise and under no name can killing ever become permissible for us. Still less can it cease to be evil when, instead of one man, thousands of people are slaug itered under the name of war. The whole thing is, in the first instance, a question of personal conscience.
GENERAL. Now that you reduce it all to personal conscience,allowmetotellyouthismuch. Iama man who is in the moral sense (as in the other, of course) of the average type : neither black nor white, but grey. I have never been guilty either of any
extraordinary virtue or of any extraordinary villainy. Even when one performs good acts there is always
groundforself-suspicion.
Onecanneversaywith certainty and with candour what one's real motive is. There may be a real good or only a weakness of the soul, perhaps a habit of life, or sometimes evenapersonalvanity. Besides,thisisallsopetty. In all my life there was only one incident which I could not call "petty" to begin with, but, what is
pitied the
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more important, in which I am certain I was not guided by any doubtful motive but solely by the impulse of good that overcame me. Only once in my life did I experience a complete moral satisfac- tion and even some kind of ecstasy, so that my actions were entirely free from considerations or hesitations. And this good act of mine has been to me till now, and will, of course, remain so for ever, my very best and purest memory. Well, this single good act of mine was a murder, and not a little insignificant murder at that, for in some quarter of an hour I killed over a thousand men !
LADY. Quelles blagues! And I thought you were quite serious for once !
GENERAL. And so I am. I can produce witnesses if you like. It was not with my own sinful hands that I killed, but with six pure, chaste steel guns, which poured forth a most virtuous and beneficent rain of shells.
LADY. Where was the good in that, I should like to know?
GENERAL. Though I am not only a soldier, but
in modern parlance a "militarist/' it is needless to
say that I would not call the mere annihilation of a
thousand ordinary men a good act, were they Ger-
mans, or Hungarians, or Englishmen, or Turks. Here it was quite an exceptional case. Even now
I cannot speak calmly about it, so painfully it stirred my soul.
D
? 34 SOLOVIEV
LADY. Please do not keep us on tenterhooks. Tell us all about it.
GENERAL. I mentioned guns. You will then have guessed that the affair happened in the last Russo-Turkish war. I was with the Caucasian army. After October 3rd . . .
LADY. What about October 3rd?
GENERAL. That was the day of the great battle in the Aladja mountains, when for the first time we crushed all the ribs of the "invincible" Hasi- MoukhtarPasha. SoafterOctober3rdweatonce advanced into Asiatic country. I was on the left front at the head of the advance guard engaged in
scouting. I had under me the Nijny-Novgorod dragoons, three "hundreds" of Kuban Cossacks,
and a battery of horse artillery. The country was not particularly inspiring : in the mountains it was
fairly decent, sometimes even beautiful. But down
in the valleys nothing but deserted, burnt-out vil- lagesanddowntroddenfieldsweretobeseen. One morning October the 28th, it was we were de-
scending a valley, where according to the map there was a big Armenian village. As a matter of fact
there was no village to be seen, though there had really been one there not long before, and of a decent size, too : its smoke could be seen miles away. I had my detachment well together in close formation, for reports had been received that we
might run into a strong cavalry force. I was riding with the dragoons; the Cossacks were in advance.
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There was a sharp bend in the road as we neared the village. Suddenly the Cossacks reined in their horses and stood as if they were rooted to the spot. I galloped forward. Before I could see anything I guessed by the smell of roasting flesh that the bashi-bazouks had left their "kitchen" behind. A huge caravan of Armenian refugees had not been abletoescapeintime. Thecrowdhadbeencaught by the Turks, who had "made a good job of it" in theirowninimitablefashion. Theyhadboundthe poor Armenians, some by the head, some by the feet, some by the waist, to the high cart axles, had lit fires underneath, and had slowly grilled them. Dead women lay here and there some with breasts
cut off, others with abdomens ripped open. I need not go into further particulars. But one scene will remain for ever vivid in my memory. A poor woman lay there on the ground, her head and shoulders securely bound to the cart's axle, so that she could not move her head. She bore no burns, no wounds. But on her distorted face was stamped a ghastly terror she had evidently died of sheer horror. And before her dead, staring eyes
was a high pole, firmly fixed in the ground, and to it was tied the poor little naked body
of a baby her son, most likely a blackened, scorched little corpse, with eyes that pro- truded. Near by also was a grating in which lay the dead ashes of a fire. . . . I was com-
pletely overcome with the ghastliness of the thing. D2
? 36 SOLOVIEV
In face of such revolting evidence I could not reason myactionsbecamemechanical. GrimlyI bade my men put their horses to the gallop. We entered the burned village; it was razed to the ground;notahouseremained. Presentlywesaw a poor wretch crawling out of a dry well. He was covered with mud; his clothes were in rags. He
fell on his knees, and began wailing something in Armenian. Wehelpedhimtohisfeet,andpliedhim
witheagerquestions. HeprovedtobeanArmenian
from a distant village, a fairly intelligent fellow. He had come to the place on business just as the
inhabitants had decided to flee. They had hardly started off when the bashi-bazouks fell upon them an immense number, he said at least forty thousand. Hemanagedtohidehimselfinthewell. He heard the cries of the tortured people; he knew fullwellwhatwashappening. Later,heheardthe bashi-bazouks come back and go off again by a
'
They were going to my own village," he groaned, "and then they will do the same terrible things to all our folk. " The poor
wretch moaned pitifully, wringing his hands in despair. At that moment an inspiration seemed suddenlytocometome. Myagonyofsoulseemed suddenly comforted. This world of ours as sud- denly became once more a happy place to dwell in. I quietly asked the Armenian how long it was since those devils had left the place. He reckoned it about three hours.
different route.
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" And how long would it take for a horse to get "
to your village ?
"Over five hours. "
No, it was impossible to overtake them in two
hours. Whatadamnablebusiness!
" Do you know of another and shorter way to
your place? " I asked.
"
I do, sir, I do. " And he became at once excited. There is a way across the defile. It is very short.
And only very few people know it. " "" Is it passable on horseback ?
"
It is, sir. "
"And for artillery? "
"
It would be rather difficult, but it could be done, sir. "
I ordered my men to supply the Armenian with a horse, and with all my detachment followed him into the defile. How we all seemed to crawl there among the mountains ; yet I hardly seemed to notice anythingbytheway. Oncemoremyactionshad become merely mechanical. But in the depths of my soul I felt utter and complete confidence. I knew what I had to do, and I knew that it would be done. My heart was light; I trod on air; I exulted in the certain fulfilment of my plans.
We were already filing out from the last defile, after which we should come to the high road, when I saw our Armenian galloping back and waving his
"" hands frantically, as if to say, Here they are !
I caught up with the advance guard, and levelling
"
? 38 SOLOVIEV
my telescope I could see that he was right. I saw anapparentlyendlesscolumnofhorses notforty thousand, of course, but three or four thousand at least, if not even five. These sons of devils at once spottedtheCossacksandturnedtomeetthem. We were coming out of the defile against their left front. A hail of bullets greeted the Cossacks. These Asiatic monsters could fire their European guns as iftheywerereallyhumanbeings. Hereandthere a Cossack was picked off by a shot. A Cossack
artillery ? We can put them to flight ourselves. "
"
Patience, my dear fellow, for just one little
"
moment," I told him.
would be able to put them to flight; but what would be the pleasure of that? God bids me wipe them out and not drive them away. " Here I ordered two "hundreds" of Cossacks advancing in open order to let fly at the devils, and later, when well in the thick of it, to retreat on the battery. One hundred Cossacks I left to mask the guns, while
the Nijny-Novgorod men were placed in phalanx to the left of the battery. I trembled with impatience.
The murdered child with its staring, anguished eyes camevividlybeforeme. TheCossackswerefalling,
officer rode up to me and shouted :
attack, sir. Why should these beasts be allowed to shoot us like quails, while we are mounting our
I have no doubt that you
God ! what an agony of suspense. . . .
shot !
LADY. And the end?
GENERAL. The end came just as I knew it must.
"
Order the
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The Cossacks engaging the enemy presently began their retreat, yelling wildly in their usual fashion. Those sons of devils came pell-mell after them, too excited even to fire, and galloping en masse on our position. Withinfourhundredyardsofourlinethe Cossacks suddenly scattered, each man seeking
""
cover where he could. At last," I felt, God's
" hour has struck !
covering the guns.
I turned to the squad of Cossacks
"" Cossacks ! wheel !
I shouted.
The covering squad divided, right and left, leaving
the battery unmasked. One fierce prayer to God,
"" andthenIgavetheword Fire!
AndGodheardme. Heblessedfullyandcom-
pletely every one of my six charges. Never in my life have I heard such a devilish yell. The swine
did not come to their senses even when the second volley of shells smote them, cutting red lanes
through and through.
Suddenlythehordewheeled. Athirdvolleyfol-
lowed them up ! What a bloody mess it made ! Have you seen an ants' nest, on which burning matches have been thrown? the ants all rushing about, crushing each other? . . . In a moment our Cos-
sacks and Dragoons had charged them on the left
flank, cutting, hacking, and slicing them like cabbage. Few of them managed to get away : those who
escaped the rain of shells were cut down by the sabres. Some threw their guns away, jumped off theirhorses,andwhinedformercy. ButIwaspast giving orders. My men understood well enough
? t
'
that it was not a time for mercy. So the Cossacks and the men of Nijny-Novgorod sabred them to
a man.
It is a sure thing, however, that if these brainless
Satans, after the first two volleys were fired point- blank into their midst at a range of about 40 to 60
yards, instead of rushing back had galloped on the battery, there would have been an end to all of us
no third volley would have been fired. . . . Well, God was with us. The whole thing was over. And in my soul I felt the joy and peace of an Easter
Sunday ! We gathered our slain thirty-seven good men they were laid them together on the level
groundinrows,andclosedtheireyes. Ihadanold
sergeant in the third hundred, Odarchenko by name,
an earnest student of the Bible and singularly gifted.
In England he would have become a Prime Minister,
I am sure. Now he is in Siberia, banished there
for resisting the authorities when they were shutting
""
up some old-believers' monastery and destroying
the tomb of one of their sainted elders. I called
""
him. Well, Odarchenko," I said, now that we
are in the field there is no time for arguing about
the 'hallelujahs/ so you be our priest and perform the funeral service over our dead. " For him this
"
40 SOLOVIEV
was, of course, a Heaven-sent opportunity.
be only too glad to do it, sir," he replied, and the face of the little beast fairly beamed with joy. There was also a rough-and-ready choir. The ser-
vice was performed with all ceremony. Only the
I shall
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absolution was lacking, but this was not necessary
either : their sins were already remitted by the words
"
of Christ himself about those who lay down their
lives for their friends. " Even now I can see the
ceremony vividly before my eyes. The day had been cloudy, as it usually is in the autumn season, but at that moment the sky was clearing before the setting sun, and above the dark loom of the gloomy defile rose and amber-tinted clouds were gathering like God's own regiments. My soul was still in
ecstasywiththegloryofourfight. Wondrouspeace rested upon me; I felt that all worldly stains were
washed away, and that all the burden of earthly trouble had fallen from my shoulders. I was in Paradise I was feeling God, and there was the end
And when Odarchenko started calling out the names of the departed warriors who on the battlefield had laid down their lives for their faith, their Tsar, and their country, I truly felt that verily there was such a thing as a Christ-loving band of warriors, and that it was no mere official expression, no mere empty
title, as you were pleased to call it. I felt that war, as it was then, is now, and ever will be till the ending of the world, was something great, honourable, and
. . .
holy.
PRINCE (after a short interval of silence). Well,
when you buried your men in your happy frame of mind, tell me, didn't you think at all of the enemies whom you had killed in such great numbers ?
GENERAL. Thank God, we were able to move
of it.
? 42 SOLOVIEV
further before that carrion had time to remind us of itself.