The Light Shines in Darkness by graf Tolstoy Leo (the best novels to read .txt) đ
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Enter Nicholas IvĂĄnovich.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. How d'you do, AlĂna;[22] and you, Peter SemyĂłnovich. [To the Priest] Ah! VasĂly NikanĂłrych. [Shakes hands with them].
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. There is still some coffee left. Shall I give you a cup? It's rather cold, but can easily be warmed up. [Rings].
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. No, thank you. I have had something. Where is Mary?
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. Feeding Baby.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. Is she quite well?
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. Pretty well. Have you done your business?
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. 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 IvĂĄnovich shakes hands with him. AlexĂĄndra IvĂĄnovna shrugs her shoulders, exchanging glances with her husband.
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. Re-heat the samovĂĄr, please.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. That's not necessary, AlĂna. 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 IVĂNOVICH [caressing her]. Yes, I'll come directly. Just let me eat something first. Go and play, and I'll soon come.
Exit Missy.
Nicholas IvĂĄnovich sits down to the table, and eats and drinks eagerly.
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. Well, were they sentenced?
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. Yes! They were. They themselves pleaded guilty. [To Priest] I thought you would not find Renan very convincing âŠ
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. And you did not approve of the verdict?
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH [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 âŠ
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. Then how was it? They confessed their guilt, et vous leur avez donnĂ© un dĂ©menti?[23] They did not steal themâbut only took the wood?
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH [who had begun talking to the priest, turns resolutely to AlexĂĄndra IvĂĄnovna]. AlĂna, my dear, do not pursue me with pinpricks and insinuations.
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. But not at all âŠ
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. And if you really want to know why I can't prosecute the peasants about the wood they needed and cut down âŠ
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. I should think they also need this samovĂĄr.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. 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 âŠ
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. Considered so by everybody.
PETER SEMYĂNOVICH. Oh dear! Disputing again.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. 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 treesâis that correct? Well, they have cut down ten treesâthat 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?
STYĂPA. 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 IVĂNOVICH. 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.
STYĂPA. No, but you saved money and preserved this forest.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. 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 manâ
STYĂPA. But no one is striking anybody!
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. 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.
STYĂPA. On the contrary; science destroys all prejudices.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. However, all this is of no importance to me. What is important is that in YefĂm'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 meâI cannot condemn him, but do what I can to save him.
PETER SEMYĂNOVICH. But, if one goes on that line, one cannot possess anything.
AlexĂĄndra IvĂĄnovna and StyĂłpaâ
Both speak together ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. Then it is much more profitable to steal than to work. STYĂPA. You never reply to one's arguments. I say that a man who saves, has a right to enjoy his savings.NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH [smiling] I don't know which I am to reply to. [To Peter SemyĂłnovich] It's true. One should not possess anything.
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. 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 IVĂNOVICH. And it should be impossible to live as we do!
STYĂPA. In other words, we must die! Therefore, that teaching is unfit for life.âŠ
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. 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.
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. What! And the children's too?
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. 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.
STYĂPA. That means to die.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. 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 God 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 God, the better; and the animal will not fail to take care of itself.
STYĂPA. Why choose a middle course: an equipoise between the two? If it is right to do soâwhy not give away everything and die?
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. That would be splendid. Try to do it, and it will be well both for you and for others.
ALEXĂNDRA IVĂNOVNA. No, that is not clear, not simple. C'est tirĂ© par les cheveux.[25]
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. Well, I can't help it, and it can't be explained by argument. However, that is enough.
STYĂPA. Yes, quite enough, and I also don't understand it. [Exit].
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH [turns to Priest] Well, what impression did the book make on you?
PRIEST [agitated] How shall I put it? Well, the historic part is insufficiently worked out, and it is not fully convincing, or let us say, quite reliable; because the materials are, as a matter of fact, insufficient. Neither the Divinity of Christ, nor His lack of Divinity, can be proved historically; there is but one irrefragable proof.âŠ
During this conversation first the ladies and then Peter SemyĂłnovich go out.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. You mean the Church?
PRIEST. Well, of course, the Church, and the evidence, let's say, of reliable menâthe Saints for instance.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. Of course, it would be excellent if there existed a set of infallible people to confide in. It would be very desirable; but its desirability does not prove that they exist!
PRIEST. And I believe that just that is the proof. The Lord could not in fact have exposed His law to the possibility of mutilation or misinterpretation, but must in fact have left a guardian of His truth to prevent that truth being mutilated.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. 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 IVĂNOVICH. Faithâyes, 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.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH [hotly] There, that is the most terrible blasphemy! God has given us just one sacred tool for finding the truthâthe 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 IVĂNOVICH. 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. But that God appeared on Mount Sinai to Moses, or that Buddha flew up on a sunbeam, or that Mahomet went up into the sky, and that Christ flew there alsoâon matters of that kind we are all at variance.
PRIEST. No, we are not at variance, those of us who abide in the truth are all united in one faith in God, Christ.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. No, even there, you are not united, but have all gone asunder; so why should I believe you rather than I would believe a Buddhist Lama? Only because I happened to be born in your faith?
[The tennis players dispute] âOut!â âNot out!â
VĂNYA. I saw it âŠ:
During the conversation, men-servants set the table again for tea and coffee.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. You say the Church unites. But, on the contrary, the worst dissensions have always been caused by the Church. âHow often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens.â âŠ
PRIEST. That was until Christ. But Christ did gather them all together.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. Yes, Christ united; but we have divided: because we have understood him the wrong way round. He destroyed all Churches.
PRIEST. Did he not say: âGo, tell the Church.â
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. It is not a question of words! Besides those words don't refer to what we call âChurch.â It is the spirit of the teaching that matters. Christ's teaching is universal, and includes all religions, and does not admit of anything exclusive; neither of the Resurrection nor the Divinity of Christ, nor the Sacramentsânor of anything that divides.
PRIEST. That, as a matter of fact, if I may say so, is your own interpretation of Christ's teaching. But Christ's teaching is all founded on His Divinity and Resurrection.
NICHOLAS IVĂNOVICH. That's what is so dreadful about the Churches. They divide by declaring that they possess the full indubitable and infallible truth. They say: âIt has pleased us and the Holy Ghost.â That began at the time of the first Council of the Apostles. They then began to maintain that they had
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