The deacon listened attentively to the zoologist, pondered, and asked:
‘‘Was the moral law, which is proper to each and every person, invented by philosophers, or did God create it along with the body?’’
‘‘I don’t know. But this law is common to all peoples and epochs to such a degree that it seems to me it ought to be acknowledged as organically connected with man. It hasn’t been invented, but is and will be. I won’t tell you that it will one day be seen under a microscope, but its organic connection is proved by the evidence: serious afflictions of the brain and all so-called mental illnesses, as far as I know, express themselves first of all in a perversion of the moral law.’’
‘‘Very well, sir. Meaning that, as the stomach wants to eat, so the moral sense wants us to love our neighbor. Right? But our nature, being selfish, resists the voice of conscience and reason, and therefore many brain-racking questions arise. To whom should we turn for the solution of these questions, if you tell me not to put them on philosophical grounds?’’
‘‘Turn to the little precise knowledge we have. Trust the evidence and the logic of facts. True, it’s scanty, but then it’s not as flimsy and diffuse as philosophy. Let’s say the moral law demands that you love people. What, then? Love should consist in renouncing everything that harms people in one way or another and threatens them with danger in the present and the future. Our knowledge and the evidence tell you that mankind is threatened by danger on the part of the morally and physically abnormal. If so, then fight with the abnormal. If you’re unable to raise them to the norm, you should have enough strength and skill to render them harmless, that is, destroy them.’’
‘‘So love consists in the strong overcoming the weak.’’
‘‘Undoubtedly.’’
‘‘But it was the strong who crucified our Lord Jesus Christ!’’ the deacon said hotly.
‘‘The point is precisely that it was not the strong who crucified Him but the weak. Human culture has weakened and strives to nullify the struggle for existence and natural selection; hence the rapid proliferation of the weak and their predominance over the strong. Imagine that you manage to instill humane ideas, in an undeveloped, rudimentary form, into bees. What would come of it? The drones, which must be killed, would remain alive, would eat the honey, would corrupt and stifle the bees—the result being that the weak would prevail over the strong, and the latter would degenerate. The same is now happening with mankind: the weak oppress the strong. Among savages, still untouched by culture, the strongest, the wisest, and the most moral goes to the front; he is the leader and master. While we, the cultured, crucified Christ and go on crucifying Him. It means we lack something... And we must restore that ‘something’ in ourselves, otherwise there will be no end to these misunderstandings.’’
‘‘But what is your criterion for distinguishing between the strong and the weak?’’
‘‘Knowledge and evidence. The consumptive and the scrofulous are recognized by their ailments, and the immoral and mad by their acts.’’
‘‘But mistakes are possible!’’
‘‘Yes, but there’s no use worrying about getting your feet wet when there’s the threat of a flood.’’
‘‘That’s philosophy,’’ laughed the deacon.
‘‘Not in the least. You’re so spoiled by your seminary philosophy that you want to see nothing but fog in everything. The abstract science your young head is stuffed with is called abstract because it abstracts your mind from the evidence. Look the devil straight in the eye, and if he is the devil, say so, and don’t go to Kant or Hegel for explanations.’’
The zoologist paused and went on:
‘‘Two times two is four, and a stone is a stone. Tomorrow we’ve got a duel. You and I are going to say it’s stupid and absurd, that dueling has outlived its time, that an aristocratic duel is essentially no different from a drunken brawl in a pot-house, and even so, we won’t stop, we’ll go and fight. There is, therefore, a power that is stronger than our reasonings. We shout that war is banditry, barbarism, horror, fratricide, we cannot look at blood without fainting; but the French or the Germans need only insult us and we at once feel a surge of inspiration, we most sincerely shout ‘hurrah’ and fall upon the enemy, you will call for God’s blessing on our weapons, and our valor will evoke universal, and withal sincere, rapture. So again, there is a power that is if not higher, then stronger, than us and our philosophy. We can no more stop it than we can stop this storm cloud moving in from over the sea. Don’t be a hypocrite, then, don’t show it a fig in the pocket, and don’t say: ‘Ah, how stupid! Ah, how outdated! Ah, it doesn’t agree with the Scriptures!’ but look it straight in the eye, acknowledge its reasonable legitimacy, and when it wants, for instance, to destroy the feeble, scrofulous, depraved tribe, don’t hinder it with your pills and quotations from the poorly understood Gospel. In Leskov there’s a conscientious Danila,28 who finds a leper outside of town and feeds him and keeps him warm in the name of love and Christ. If this Danila indeed loved people, he would have dragged the leper further away from the town and thrown him into a ditch, and would have gone himself and served the healthy. Christ, I hope, gave us the commandment of reasonable, sensible, and useful love.’’
‘‘What a one you are!’’ laughed the deacon. ‘‘You don’t believe in Christ, so why do you mention Him so often?’’
‘‘No, I do believe. Only in my own way, of course, not in yours. Ah, Deacon, Deacon!’’ the zoologist laughed; he put his arm around the deacon’s waist and said gaily: ‘‘Well, what then? Shall we go to the duel tomorrow?’’
‘‘My dignity doesn’t permit it, otherwise I would.’’
‘‘And what does that mean—‘dignity’?’’
‘‘I’ve been ordained. Grace is upon me.’’
‘‘Ah, Deacon, Deacon,’’ von Koren repeated, laughing. ‘‘I love talking with you.’’
‘‘You say you have faith,’’ said the deacon. ‘‘What kind of faith is it? I have an uncle, a priest, who is such a believer that, if there’s a drought and he goes to the fields to ask for rain, he takes an umbrella and a leather coat so that he won’t get wet on the way back. That’s faith! When he talks about Christ, he gives off a glow, and all the peasants burst into sobs. He could stop this storm cloud and put all your powers to flight. Yes...faith moves mountains.’’
The deacon laughed and patted the zoologist on the shoulder.
‘‘So there . . .’’ he went on. ‘‘You keep teaching, you fathom the depths of the sea, you sort out the weak and the strong, you write books and challenge to duels—and everything stays where it was; but watch out, let some feeble little elder babble one little word by the Holy Spirit, or a new Mohammed with a scimitar come riding out of Arabia on a stallion, and everything of yours will go flying topsy-turvy, and in Europe there will be no stone left upon stone.’’
‘‘Well, Deacon, that’s written in the sky with a pitchfork!’’
‘‘Faith without works is dead, but works without faith are worse still,29 merely a waste of time and nothing more.’’
The doctor appeared on the embankment. He saw the deacon and the zoologist and went up to them.
‘‘Everything seems to be ready,’’ he said, out of breath. ‘‘Govorovsky and Boiko will be the seconds. They’ll call at five o’clock in the morning. It’s really piling up!’’ he said, looking at the sky. ‘‘Can’t see a thing! It’ll rain soon.’’