The Duel - Aleksandr Kuprin (best summer reads of all time TXT) 📗

with my whole soul so much as that of John the Almoner.22 The leper says: ‘I am shivering with cold; lie beside me in my bed and warm my body with thy limbs. Lay thy lips close to my fetid mouth and breathe on me!’ Oh, how disgusting! How I hate this victim of leprosy, and, for the matter of that, also all other similar choice examples of my ‘neighbour.’ Can any reasonable being tell me why I should crush my head so that the generation in the year 3200 may attain a higher standard of happiness? Be quiet! I, too, once upon a time, sympathized with the silly, babyish cackle about ‘the world-soul,’ ‘man’s sacred duty,’ etc. But even if these highfalutin phrases did find a place then in my brain, they never forced their way into my heart. Do you follow me, Romashov?”

Romashov looked at Nasanski with a mixture of gratitude and shame.

“I understand you fully. When I come to ‘send in my checks’ and die, then the universe dies with me. That’s what you meant, eh?”

“Exactly, but listen further. Love of humanity is burnt out and has vanished from the heart of man. In its stead shall come a new creed, a new view of life that shall last to the world’s end; and this view of life consists in the individual’s love for himself, for his own powerful intelligence and the infinite riches of his feelings and perceptions. Think, Romashov, just this way and in no other. Who is nearer and dearer to me than myself? No one. You, and none other, are the Tsar and autocrat of your own soul, its pride and ornament. You are the god of all that lives. To you alone belongs all that you see, hear, and feel. Take what you want and do what you please. Fear nobody and nothing, for there is no one in the whole universe above you or can even be your rival. Ah, a time will come when the fixed belief in one’s own Ego will cast its blessed beams over mankind as did once the fiery tongues of the Holy Ghost over the Apostles’ heads. Then there will be no longer slaves and masters; no maimed or cripples; no malice, no vices, no pity, no hate. Men will be gods. How shall I dare to deceive, insult, or ill-treat another man, in whom I see and feel my fellow, who, like myself, is a god? Then, and then only, shall life be rich and beautiful. Over the whole habitable portion of our earth shall tall, airy, lovely buildings be raised. Nothing vulgar, common, low, and impure shall any longer torture the eye. Our daily life shall become a pleasurable toil, an enfranchised science, a wonderful music, an everlasting merrymaking. Love, free and sovereign, shall become the world’s religion. No longer shall it be forced in shame to hide its countenance; no longer shall it be coupled with sin, disgrace, and darkness. And our own bodies shall glow with health, strength, and beauty, and go clad in bright, shimmering robes. Just as certainly as I believe in an eternal sky above me,” shouted Nasanski, “so do I just as firmly believe in this paradisaical life to come.”

Romashov, agitated and no longer master of himself, whispered with white lips:

“Nasanski, these are dreams, fancies.”

Nasanski’s smile was silent and compassionate.

“Yes,” he at last uttered with a laugh still lingering in his voice, “you may perhaps be right. A professor of Dogmatic Theology or Classical Philology would, with arms and legs extended and head bent on one side in profound thought, say something like this: ‘This is merely an outburst of the most unbridled Individualism.’ But, my dear fellow, luckily the thing does not depend on more or less categorical phrases and comminations fulminated in a loud voice, but on the fact that there is nothing in the world more real, practical and irrefutable than these so-called ‘fancies,’ which are certainly only the property of some few people. These fancies will some day more strongly and completely weld together the whole of mankind to a complete homogeneous body. But let us forget now that we are warriors. We are merely defenceless starar. Suppose we go up the street; there we see right before us a wonderful, merry-looking, two-headed monster23 that attacks all who come within its reach, no matter who they be. It has not yet touched me, but the mere thought that this brute might ill-treat me, or insult a woman I loved, or deprive me of my liberty is enough to make me mad. I cannot overpower this creature by myself, but beside me walks another man filled with the same thirst for vengeance as I, and I say to him: ‘Come, shall we go and kill the monster, so that he may not be able to dig his claws into anyone!’ You understand that all I have just been telling you is only a drastic simile, a hyperbole; but the truth is that I see, in this two-headed monster that which holds my soul captive, limits my individual freedom, and robs me of my manhood. And when that day dawns, then no more lamblike love for one’s neighbour, but the divine love to one’s own Ego will be preached among men. Then, too, the double-headed monster’s reign will be over.”

Nasanski stopped. This violent outburst had evidently been too much for his nerves. After a few minutes, he went on in a hollow voice:

“My dear Georgi Alexievich, there rushes past us incessantly a brawling stream of divinely inspired, lofty, flaming thoughts and new and imperishable ideas which are to crush and bury forever the bulwarks and golden idols of tyranny and darkness. We, however, keep on stamping in our old stalls and neighing: ‘Ah, you poor jades, you ought to have a taste of the whip!’⁠—And once more I say: This will never be forgiven us.”

Nasanski got