Short Fiction - Leo Tolstoy (best books to read non fiction .TXT) 📗

in their way. Punishment cannot restrain them; danger only gives them new life and spirit; if they suffer, they are regarded as martyrs, and earn the sympathy of mankind, and they stimulate others to go and do likewise.

The Christians, though they clearly perceive the error of such conspirators, appreciate their sincerity and self-denial, and recognize them as brethren on the ground of the positive good which they possess. Many of these conspirators regard the Christians, not as foes, but as men sincerely and eagerly bent on doing good, and so have joined them, accepting the conviction that a quiet life of toil and incessant solicitude for the welfare of others is incomparatively more beneficial than their momentary deeds of prowess, stained by human blood needlessly sacrificed.

Pamphilius concludes that Julius may decide for himself whether the Christians who preach and prove the joy and delight of a spiritual life, from which no evil can arise, or the Roman rulers and judges⁠—who pass sentences according to the letter of a dead law, and thus lash their victims into fury and drive them to the utmost hatred, are most fit to grapple successfully with crime.

Julius replies, “As long as I keep listening to you I seem to get the impression that your point of view is correct.”

Julius is almost convinced by this argument, and asks the same question as in the Moscow edition, but Pamphilius makes a different reply. He says, the reason for this anomaly is not in the Christians, but outside of them. Above and beyond the temporary laws established by the State and recognized by all men, there are eternal laws engraved in the hearts of men. The Christians obey these universal laws, discerning in the life of Christ their clearest and fullest expression, and condemning, as a crime, every form of violence which transgresses His commandments. They feel bound to observe the civil laws of the country in which they live, unless these laws are opposed to God’s laws. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” The Christians strive to avoid and do away with all crimes, both those against the State and those that go counter to God’s will, and, therefore, their fight with crime is more comprehensive than that carried on by the State. But this recognition of God’s will as the highest law offends those that claim precedence for a private law, or that take some ingrained custom of their class as a law. Such men are animated by feelings of enmity for those that proclaim that man has a higher mission than to be merely subjects of a State or members of a Society. Christ said concerning them: “Woe unto you lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.”

The Christians entertain enmity against no man, not even against those that persecute them, and their way of life injures no man. The only reason why men hate and persecute them is because their manner of life is a constant rebuke to those whose conduct is based on violence. Christ predicted this hatred, but, strengthened by His example, they do not fear those that kill the body. They live in the light of truth, and that life knows no death. Physical suffering and death they cannot escape, neither can their persecutors and executioners. But the Christian is supported by his religion, and though not secure from physical pain and death, yet he preserves equanimity in all the vicissitudes of life, consoled by the conviction that whatever happens to him independently of his own will is unavoidable and for his ultimate good, and by the knowledge that he is true to his conscience and to reason.

The end of the chapter is practically the same. —⁠N. H. Dole ↩

Offense; Russian, temptation. ↩

Omitted, the significant dictum: “The greater the power of the ruler the less he is loved.” ↩

Soblaznitʹ, tempt, seduce. ↩

It was customary in Russia for a first, second, and third bell to ring before a train left a station. —⁠A. M. ↩

Literally “in the terem,” the terem being the woman’s quarter where in olden times the women of a Russian family used to be secluded in oriental fashion. —⁠A. M. ↩

The Housebuilder, a sixteenth-century manual, by the monk Silvester, on religion and household management. —⁠A. M. ↩

One Russian edition adds: “First woman’s rights, then civil marriage, and then divorce, come as unsettled questions.” —⁠A. M. ↩

Tea in Russia is usually drunk out of tumblers. —⁠A. M. ↩

In Russia, as in other continental countries and formerly in England, the maisons de tolérance were under the supervision of the government; doctors were employed to examine the women, and, as far as possible, see they did not continue the trade when diseased. —⁠A. M. ↩

A notorious Parisian cancanière. —⁠A. M. ↩

Streets in Moscow in which brothels were numerous. —⁠A. M. ↩

In the printed and censored Russian edition the word “Court” was changed to “most refined.” —⁠A. M. ↩

In Russia wet-nurses were usually provided with an elaborate national costume by their employers. —⁠A. M. ↩

The practice of employing wet-nurses was very much more general in Russia than in the English-speaking countries. —⁠A. M. ↩

The card-game named in the original, and then much played in Russia, was vint, which resembles bridge. —⁠A. M. ↩

Vánka the Steward is the subject and name of some old Russian poems. Vánka seduces