is my own personal conviction, and it has long distressedme. The Roman Catholic believes that the Church on earth cannot standwithout universal temporal Power. He cries ‘non possumus!’ In myopinion the Roman Catholic religion is not a faith at all, but simply acontinuation of the Roman Empire, and everything is subordinated tothis idea--beginning with faith. The Pope has seized territories and anearthly throne, and has held them with the sword. And so the thing hasgone on, only that to the sword they have added lying, intrigue, deceit,fanaticism, superstition, swindling;--they have played fast and loosewith the most sacred and sincere feelings of men;--they have exchangedeverything--everything for money, for base earthly _power!_ And is thisnot the teaching of Anti-Christ? How could the upshot of all thisbe other than Atheism? Atheism is the child of Roman Catholicism--itproceeded from these Romans themselves, though perhaps they would notbelieve it. It grew and fattened on hatred of its parents; it is theprogeny of their lies and spiritual feebleness. Atheism! In our countryit is only among the upper classes that you find unbelievers; men whohave lost the root or spirit of their faith; but abroad whole masses ofthe people are beginning to profess unbelief--at first because ofthe darkness and lies by which they were surrounded; but now out offanaticism, out of loathing for the Church and Christianity!”
The prince paused to get breath. He had spoken with extraordinaryrapidity, and was very pale.
All present interchanged glances, but at last the old dignitary burstout laughing frankly. Prince N. took out his eye-glass to have a goodlook at the speaker. The German poet came out of his corner and creptnearer to the table, with a spiteful smile.
“You exaggerate the matter very much,” said Ivan Petrovitch, with rathera bored air. “There are, in the foreign Churches, many representativesof their faith who are worthy of respect and esteem.”
“Oh, but I did not speak of individual representatives. I was merelytalking about Roman Catholicism, and its essence--of Rome itself. AChurch can never entirely disappear; I never hinted at that!”
“Agreed that all this may be true; but we need not discuss a subjectwhich belongs to the domain of theology.”
“Oh, no; oh, no! Not to theology alone, I assure you! Why, Socialism isthe progeny of Romanism and of the Romanistic spirit. It and its brotherAtheism proceed from Despair in opposition to Catholicism. It seeks toreplace in itself the moral power of religion, in order to appease thespiritual thirst of parched humanity and save it; not by Christ, butby force. ‘Don’t dare to believe in God, don’t dare to possess anyindividuality, any property! _Fraternité ou la Mort_; two million heads.‘By their works ye shall know them’--we are told. And we must notsuppose that all this is harmless and without danger to ourselves. Oh,no; we must resist, and quickly, quickly! We must let our Christ shineforth upon the Western nations, our Christ whom we have preservedintact, and whom they have never known. Not as slaves, allowingourselves to be caught by the hooks of the Jesuits, but carrying ourRussian civilization to _them_, we must stand before them, not letting itbe said among us that their preaching is ‘skilful,’ as someone expressedit just now.”
“But excuse me, excuse me;” cried Ivan Petrovitch considerablydisturbed, and looking around uneasily. “Your ideas are, of course, mostpraiseworthy, and in the highest degree patriotic; but you exaggeratethe matter terribly. It would be better if we dropped the subject.”
“No, sir, I do not exaggerate, I understate the matter, if anything,undoubtedly understate it; simply because I cannot express myself as Ishould like, but--”
“Allow me!”
The prince was silent. He sat straight up in his chair and gazedfervently at Ivan Petrovitch.
“It seems to me that you have been too painfully impressed by the newsof what happened to your good benefactor,” said the old dignitary,kindly, and with the utmost calmness of demeanour. “You are excitable,perhaps as the result of your solitary life. If you would make up yourmind to live more among your fellows in society, I trust, I am sure,that the world would be glad to welcome you, as a remarkable young man;and you would soon find yourself able to look at things more calmly. Youwould see that all these things are much simpler than you think; and,besides, these rare cases come about, in my opinion, from ennui and fromsatiety.”
“Exactly, exactly! That is a true thought!” cried the prince. “Fromennui, from our ennui but not from satiety! Oh, no, you are wrong there!Say from _thirst_ if you like; the thirst of fever! And please do notsuppose that this is so small a matter that we may have a laugh at itand dismiss it; we must be able to foresee our disasters and arm againstthem. We Russians no sooner arrive at the brink of the water, andrealize that we are really at the brink, than we are so delighted withthe outlook that in we plunge and swim to the farthest point we cansee. Why is this? You say you are surprised at Pavlicheff’s action; youascribe it to madness, to kindness of heart, and what not, but it is notso.
“Our Russian intensity not only astonishes ourselves; all Europe wondersat our conduct in such cases! For, if one of us goes over to RomanCatholicism, he is sure to become a Jesuit at once, and a rabid one intothe bargain. If one of us becomes an Atheist, he must needs begin toinsist on the prohibition of faith in God by force, that is, by thesword. Why is this? Why does he then exceed all bounds at once? Becausehe has found land at last, the fatherland that he sought in vain before;and, because his soul is rejoiced to find it, he throws himself upon itand kisses it! Oh, it is not from vanity alone, it is not from feelingsof vanity that Russians become Atheists and Jesuits! But from spiritualthirst, from anguish of longing for higher things, for dry firm land,for foothold on a fatherland which they never believed in because theynever knew it. It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than forany other nationality in the world. And not only does a Russian ‘becomean Atheist,’ but he actually _believes in_ Atheism, just as though hehad found a new faith, not perceiving that he has pinned his faith toa negation. Such is our anguish of thirst! ‘Whoso has no country has noGod.’ That is not my own expression; it is the expression of a merchant,one of the Old Believers, whom I once met while travelling. He did notsay exactly these words. I think his expression was:
“‘Whoso forsakes his country forsakes his God.’
“But let these thirsty Russian souls find, like Columbus’ discoverers, anew world; let them find the Russian world, let them search and discoverall the gold and treasure that lies hid in the bosom of their own land!Show them the restitution of lost humanity, in the future, by Russianthought alone, and by means of the God and of the Christ of our Russianfaith, and you will see how mighty and just and wise and good a giantwill rise up before the eyes of the astonished and frightened world;astonished because they expect nothing but the sword from us, becausethey think they will get nothing out of us but barbarism. This hasbeen the case up to now, and the longer matters go on as they are nowproceeding, the more clear will be the truth of what I say; and I--”
But at this moment something happened which put a most unexpected end tothe orator’s speech. All this heated tirade, this outflow of passionatewords and ecstatic ideas which seemed to hustle and tumble over eachother as they fell from his lips, bore evidence of some unusuallydisturbed mental condition in the young fellow who had “boiled over” insuch a remarkable manner, without any apparent reason.
Of those who were present, such as knew the prince listened to hisoutburst in a state of alarm, some with a feeling of mortification. Itwas so unlike his usual timid self-constraint; so inconsistent with hisusual taste and tact, and with his instinctive feeling for the higherproprieties. They could not understand the origin of the outburst; itcould not be simply the news of Pavlicheff’s perversion. By the ladiesthe prince was regarded as little better than a lunatic, and PrincessBielokonski admitted afterwards that “in another minute she would havebolted.”
The two old gentlemen looked quite alarmed. The old general (Epanchin’schief) sat and glared at the prince in severe displeasure. The colonelsat immovable. Even the German poet grew a little
pale, though he worehis usual artificial smile as he looked around to see what the otherswould do.
In point of fact it is quite possible that the matter would have endedin a very commonplace and natural way in a few minutes. The undoubtedlyastonished, but now more collected, General Epanchin had several timesendeavoured to interrupt the prince, and not having succeeded he was nowpreparing to take firmer and more vigorous measures to attain his end.In another minute or two he would probably have made up his mind to leadthe prince quietly out of the room, on the plea of his being ill (and itwas more than likely that the general was right in his belief that theprince _was_ actually ill), but it so happened that destiny had somethingdifferent in store.
At the beginning of the evening, when the prince first came into theroom, he had sat down as far as possible from the Chinese vase whichAglaya had spoken of the day before.
Will it be believed that, after Aglaya’s alarming words, an ineradicableconviction had taken possession of his mind that, however he