“The sincerity of religious mood is surely the best indication of a saving faith.”
“We’ll discuss that later,” piped out Doulebov sternly. “This is not a convenient moment.”
“As you like,” said Trirodov with a smile. “It is all the same to me when you discuss it.”
Doulebov, red with agitation, rose from his chair and, going up to Trirodov, said to him:
“It is absolutely necessary that I should have a talk with you.”
“At your service,” said Trirodov, not without some astonishment.
“Please continue,” said Doulebov to Shabalov.
Doulebov and Trirodov went into the next room. Their conversation soon assumed a very sharp character. Doulebov made some savage accusations and said rather vehemently:
“I have heard improper things about your school, but, indeed, the reality exceeds all expectations.”
“What is there precisely improper?” asked Trirodov. “In what way has reality surpassed gossip?”
“I don’t collect gossip,” squealed Doulebov excitedly. “I see with my own eyes. This is not a school but a pornography!”
His voice had already passed into piggish tones. He struck the table with his palm. There was the hard sound of the wedding-ring against the wood. Trirodov said:
“I too have heard that you were a man with self-control. But this is not the first time today that I’ve noticed your violent movements.”
Doulebov made an effort to recover himself. He said more quietly:
“It is a revolting pornography!”
“And what do you call pornography?” asked Trirodov.
“Don’t you know?” said Doulebov with a sarcastic smile.
“Yes, I know,” said Trirodov. “In my conception every written lechery and disfigurement of beautiful truth to gratify the low instincts of the man-beast—that is pornography. Your thrice-assured State school—that is the true example of pornography.”
“They walk about naked here!” squealed Doulebov.
Trirodov retorted:
“They will be healthier and cleaner than those children who leave your school.”
Doulebov shouted:
“Even your instructresses walk about naked. You’ve taken on depraved girls as instructresses.”
Trirodov replied calmly:
“That’s a lie!”
The Headmaster said sharply and excitedly:
“Your school—if this awful, impossible establishment can be called a school—will be closed at once. I will make the application to the District today.”
Trirodov replied sharply:
“That you can do.”
Soon the visitors left in an ugly frame of mind. Doulebova hissed and waxed indignant the whole way back.
“He’s clearly a dangerous man,” observed Kerbakh.
XXXIII
Piotr and Rameyev arrived at Trirodov’s together. Rameyev more than once said to Piotr that he had been very rude to Trirodov, and that he ought to smooth out matters somehow. Piotr agreed very unwillingly.
Once more they talked about the war.34 Trirodov asked Rameyev:
“I think you see only a political significance in this war.”
“And do you disagree with me?” asked Rameyev.
“No,” said Trirodov, “I admit that. But, in my opinion, aside from the stupid and criminal actions of these or other individuals, there are more general causes. History has its own dialectic. Whether or not a war had taken place is all the same: there would have been a fated collision in any case, in one or another form; there would have begun the decisive struggle between two worlds, two comprehensions of the world, two moralities, Buddha and Christ.”
“The teachings of Buddhism resemble those of Christianity considerably,” said Piotr. “That is its only value.”
“Yes,” said Trirodov. “There appears to be a great resemblance at the first glance; but actually these two systems are as opposite as the poles. They are the affirmation and the denial of life, its Yes and its No, its irony and its lyricism. The affirmation, Yes, is Christianity; the denial, No, is Buddhism.”
“That seems to me to be too much of a generalization,” said Rameyev.
Trirodov continued:
“I generalize for the sake of clearness. The present moment in history is especially convenient. It is history’s zenith hour. Now that Christianity has revealed the eternal contradiction of the world, we are passing through the poignant struggle of those two world conceptions.”
“And not the struggle of the classes?” asked Rameyev.
“Yes,” said Trirodov, “there is also the struggle of the classes, to whatever degree two inimical factors enter into the struggle—social justice and the real relation of forces—a common morality, which is always static, and a common dynamism. The Christian element is in morality, the Buddhistic in dynamism. Indeed, the weakness of Europe consists in that its life has already for a long time nourished itself on a substance Buddhistic in origin.”
Piotr said confidently, in the voice of a young prophet:
“In this duel Christianity will triumph—not the historic Christianity, of course, and not the present, but the Christianity of St. John and the Apocalypse. And it will triumph only then when everything will appear lost, and the world will be in the power of the yellow Antichrist.”
“I don’t think that will happen,” said Trirodov quietly.
“I suppose you think Buddha will triumph,” said Piotr in vexation.
“No,” replied Trirodov calmly.
“The devil, perhaps!” exclaimed Piotr.
“Petya!” exclaimed Rameyev reproachfully.
Trirodov lowered his head slightly, as if he were confused, and said tranquilly:
“We see two currents, equally powerful. It would be strange that either one of them should conquer. That is impossible. It is impossible to destroy half of the whole historical energy.”
“However,” said Piotr, “if neither Christ nor Buddha conquers, what awaits us? Or is that fool Guyau right when he speaks of the irreligiousness of future generations?”35
“There will be a synthesis,” replied Trirodov. “You will accept it for the devil.”
“This contradictory mixture is worse than forty devils!” exclaimed Piotr.
The visitors soon left.
Kirsha came without being called—confused and agitated by an indefinable something. He was silent, and his dark eyes flamed with sadness and fear. He walked up to the window, looked out in an attitude of expectancy. He seemed to see something in the distance. There was a look of apprehension in his dark, wide-open eyes, as if they were fixed on a strange distant vision. Thus people look during a hallucination.
Kirsha turned to his father and, growing pale, said quietly:
“Father, a visitor has come to you from quite afar. How strange that he has come in a simple carriage and in ordinary clothes! I wonder why he has come?”
They
