Resurrection by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (portable ebook reader txt) 📕

the laws,” said the Englishman.

Nekhludoff translated the question. The old man laughed in a

strange manner, showing his teeth.

“The laws?” he repeated with contempt. “He first robbed

everybody, took all the earth, all the rights away from men,

killed all those who were against him, and then wrote laws,

forbidding robbery and murder. He should have written these laws

before.”

Nekhludoff translated. The Englishman smiled. “Well, anyhow, ask

him how one should treat thieves and murderers at present?”

Nekhludoff again translated his question.

“Tell him he should take the seal of Antichrist off himself,” the

old man said, frowning severely; “then there will he no thieves

and murderers. Tell him so.”

“He is crazy,” said the Englishman, when Nekhludoff had

translated the old man’s words, and, shrugging his shoulders, he

left the cell.

“Do thy business and leave them alone. Every one for himself. God

knows whom to execute, whom to forgive, and we do not know,” said

the old man. “Every man be his own chief, then the chiefs will

not be wanted. Go, go!” he added, angrily frowning and looking

with glittering eyes at Nekhludoff, who lingered in the cell.

“Hast thou not looked on long enough how the servants of

Antichrist feed lice on men? Go, go!”

When Nekhludoff went out he saw the Englishman standing by the

open door of an empty cell with the inspector, asking what the

cell was for. The inspector explained that it was the mortuary.

“Oh,” said the Englishman when Nekhludoff had translated, and

expressed the wish to go in.

The mortuary was an ordinary cell, not very large. A small lamp

hung on the wall and dimly lit up sacks and logs of wood that

were piled up in one corner, and four dead bodies lay on the

bedshelves to the right. The first body had a coarse linen shirt

and trousers on; it was that of a tall man with a small beard and

half his head shaved. The body was quite rigid; the bluish hands,

that had evidently been folded on the breast, had separated; the

legs were also apart and the bare feet were sticking out. Next to

him lay a barefooted old woman in a white petticoat, her head,

with its thin plait of hair, uncovered, with a little, pinched

yellow face and a sharp nose. Beyond her was another man with

something lilac on. This colour reminded Nekhludoff of something.

He came nearer and looked at the body. The small, pointed beard

sticking upwards, the firm, well-shaped nose, the high, white

forehead, the thin, curly hair; he recognised the familiar

features and could hardly believe his eyes. Yesterday he had seen

this face, angry, excited, and full of suffering; now it was

quiet, motionless, and terribly beautiful. Yes, it was Kryltzoff,

or at any rate the trace that his material existence had left

behind. “Why had he suffered? Why had he lived? Does he now

understand?” Nekhludoff thought, and there seemed to be no

answer, seemed to be nothing but death, and he felt faint.

Without taking leave of the Englishman, Nekhludoff asked the

inspector to lead him out into the yard, and feeling the absolute

necessity of being alone to think over all that had happened that

evening, he drove back to his hotel.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A NEW LIFE DAWNS FOR NEKHLUDOFF.

Nekhludoff did not go to bed, but went up and down his room for a

long time. His business with Katusha was at an end. He was not

wanted, and this made him sad and ashamed. His other business was

not only unfinished, but troubled him more than ever and demanded

his activity. All this horrible evil that he had seen and learned

to know lately, and especially to-day in that awful prison, this

evil, which had killed that dear Kryltzoff, ruled and was

triumphant, and he could foreseen possibility of conquering or

even knowing how to conquer it. Those hundreds and thousands of

degraded human beings locked up in the noisome prisons by

indifferent generals, procureurs, inspectors, rose up in his

imagination; he remembered the strange, free old man accusing the

officials, and therefore considered mad, and among the corpses

the beautiful, waxen face of Kryltzoff, who had died in anger.

And again the question as to whether he was mad or those who

considered they were in their right minds while they committed

all these deeds stood before him with renewed force and demanded

an answer.

Tired of pacing up and down, tired of thinking, he sat down on

the sofa near the lamp and mechanically opened the Testament

which the Englishman had given him as a remembrance, and which he

had thrown on the table when he emptied his pockets on coming in.

“It is said one can find an answer to everything here,” he

thought, and opened the Testament at random and began reading

Matt. xviii. 1-4: “In that hour came the disciples unto Jesus,

saying, Who then is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? And He

called to Him a little child, and set him in the midst of them,

and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn and become as

little children, ye shall in nowise enter into the Kingdom of

Heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little

child the same is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

“Yes, yes, that is true,” he said, remembering that he had known

the peace and joy of life only when he had humbled himself.

“And whosoever shall receive one such little child in My name

receiveth Me, but whoso shall cause one of these little ones to

stumble, it is more profitable for him that a great millstone

should be hanged about his neck and that he should be sunk in the

depths of the sea.” (Matt. xviii. 5, 6.)

“What is this for, ‘Whosoever shall receive?’ Receive where? And

what does ‘in my name’ mean?” he asked, feeling that these words

did not tell him anything. “And why ‘the millstone round his neck

and the depths of the sea?’ No, that is not it: it is not clear,”

and he remembered how more than once in his life he had taken to

reading the Gospels, and how want of clearness in these passages

had repulsed him. He went on to read the seventh, eighth, ninth,

and tenth verses about the occasions of stumbling, and that they

must come, and about punishment by casting men into hell fire,

and some kind of angels who see the face of the Father in Heaven.

“What a pity that this is so incoherent,” he thought, “yet one

feels that there is something good in it.”

“For the Son of Man came to save that which was lost,” he

continued to read.

“How think ye? If any man have a hundred sheep and one of them go

astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine and go into the

mountains and seek that which goeth astray? And if so be that he

find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth over it more than

over the ninety and nine which have not gone astray.

“Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in Heaven

that one of these little ones should perish.”

“Yes, it is not the will of the Father that they should perish,

and here they are perishing by hundreds and thousands. And there

is no possibility of saving them,” he thought.

“Then came Peter and said to him, How oft shall my brother offend

me and I forgive him? Until seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I

say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times

seven.

“Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened unto a certain king

which made a reckoning with his servants. And when he had begun

to reckon, one was brought unto him which owed him ten thousand

talents. But forasmuch as he had not wherewith to pay, his lord

commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that

he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down

and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me; I will

pay thee all. And the lord of that servant, being moved with

compassion, released him and forgave him the debt. But that

servant went out, and found one of his fellow-servants which owed

him a hundred pence; and he laid hold on him and took him by the

throat, saying, Pay what thou owest. So his fellow-servant fell

down and besought him, saying, Have patience with me and I will

pay thee. And he would not, but went and cast him into prison

till he should pay that which was due. So when his

fellow-servants saw what was done, they were exceeding sorry, and

came and told unto their lord all that was done. Then his lord

called him unto him and saith to him, Thou wicked servant, I

forgave thee all that debt because thou besought me; shouldst not

thou also have mercy on thy fellow-servant as I had mercy on

thee?”

“And is this all?” Nekhludoff suddenly exclaimed aloud, and the

inner voice of the whole of his being said, “Yes, it is all.” And

it happened to Nekhludoff, as it often happens to men who are

living a spiritual life. The thought that seemed strange at first

and paradoxical or even to be only a joke, being confirmed more

and more often by life’s experience, suddenly appeared as the

simplest, truest certainty. In this way the idea that the only

certain means of salvation from the terrible evil from which men

were suffering was that they should always acknowledge themselves

to be sinning against God, and therefore unable to punish or

correct others, because they were dear to Him. It became clear to

him that all the dreadful evil he had been witnessing in prisons

and jails and the quiet self-satisfaction of the perpetrators of

this evil were the consequences of men trying to do what was

impossible; trying to correct evil while being evil themselves;

vicious men were trying to correct other vicious men, and thought

they could do it by using mechanical means, and the only

consequence of all this was that the needs and the cupidity of

some men induced them to take up this so-called punishment and

correction as a profession, and have themselves become utterly

corrupt, and go on unceasingly depraving those whom they torment.

Now he saw clearly what all the terrors he had seen came from,

and what ought to be done to put a stop to them. The answer he

could not find was the same that Christ gave to Peter. It was

that we should forgive always an infinite number of times because

there are no men who have not sinned themselves, and therefore

none can punish or correct others.

“But surely it cannot he so simple,” thought Nekhludoff, and yet

he saw with certainty, strange as it had seemed at first, that it

was not only a theoretical but also a practical solution of the

question. The usual objection, “What is one to do with the evil

doers? Surely not let them go unpunished?” no longer confused

him. This objection might have a meaning if it were proved that

punishment lessened crime, or improved the criminal, but when the

contrary was proved, and it was evident that it was not in

people’s power to correct each other, the only reasonable thing

to do is to leave off doing the things which are not only

useless, but harmful, immoral and cruel.

For many centuries people who were considered criminals have been

tortured. Well, and have they ceased to exist? No; their numbers

have