“But would my choice deserve condemnation?”
“People who talk all sorts of nonsense will speak about it as they please; but people who look upon life from a reasonable standpoint will say that you have done as you ought. If you have done so, it will show that such was your individuality, that you could not have acted otherwise, circumstances being as they are; they will say that you have acted under the necessity of things, that properly speaking you could not have had any other choice.”
“And no condemnation whatever for my actions?”
“Who has the right to condemn the results of a fact when the fact itself is in existence? Your individuality in the given circumstances is a fact; your actions are the essential, unavoidable results of this fact, arising from the nature of things. You are not responsible for them, and to condemn them is absurd.”
“Well, I see you stick to your theory. And so I shall not deserve your condemnation, if I accept the rich man’s offer?”
“I should be a fool if I condemned it.”
“And so your permission—I might say, your approval—I might even say, your direct advice—is to do as I have said?”
“There is always one thing to advise—‘reason out what is for your best’; if you do that, you have my approval.”
“Thank you. Now the personal case is decided. Let us return to the first, that is, the general question. We began by saying that a man acts from necessity; his actions are determined by the influences from which they take their rise, the stronger motives always predominating. Our arguments went thus: when an action has vital importance, the stimulus is called self-interest; its interaction in man is the calculation of self-interests, and therefore a man must always act in accordance with the motive of self-interest. Do I express the thread of the thought?”
“Perfectly.”
“You see what a good pupil I am. Now this private question about the actions that have an important bearing upon life is settled. But in the general question there remain some difficulties yet. Your book says that a man acts from necessity; but there are cases when it seems that it depends upon my will to act in this way or in that. For instance, I am playing, and I turn the leaves of the music. I turn them sometimes with my left hand, sometimes with my right hand. Let us suppose that I have turned them now with the right hand; why could I not have done it with my left hand? Does it not depend upon my own will?”
“No, Viéra Pavlovna; when you are turning the leaves, not thinking which hand you use, you turn them with the hand that is most convenient; there is no will about it. If you think, ‘Let me turn them with my right hand,’ you then turn them under the influence of this thought; but this thought itself was not a matter of your will, but was engendered unavoidably by others.”
At this word Marya Alekséyevna ceased to listen. “Nu! they are spending their time over science; that ain’t in my line, it ain’t necessary either. What a wise, intelligent, and I may say noble, young man he is! What reasonable advice he gives Viérotchka! And that shows that he is a learned man: now here I go and tells her the same things; she does not listen, she gets offended; I can’t suit her because I don’t know how to speak scientific enough. But here when he speaks scientific, she listens and sees that it is the truth, and she agrees with it. Da! it is said not in vain, ‘knowledge is light; ignorance, darkness.’ If I had been a well-educated woman, would it have been with me as it is now? I’d have got my husband into favor with the generals; I would have got a place for him in the department of supplies, or somewhere else just as good! Nu! of course I should have done the business myself with the contractors! the idea of his doing it—rubbish! I’d have built a much better house than this. I’d have bought more than a thousand souls [dushi, serfs]. But now I cannot. It is necessary to get a recommendation first in the society of generals; and how can I do that? I can’t speak French, nor any other language of theirs. They’ll say, ‘She hain’t got any manners; all she’s good for is to make an uproar on the hay-market!’ So I am no good! ‘Ignorance is darkness.’ Indeed ‘knowledge is light; ignorance is darkness.’ ”
Now it was just this conversation that Marya Alekséyevna had overheard that brought her to the conviction that Dmitri Sergéitch’s conversation was not only not dangerous for Viérotchka—she had been inclined to think that before—but was even likely to do her good, to lighten her own labors in overcoming Viérotchka’s foolish, inexperienced, girlish, thoughts, and hasten the mystical benediction in the affair with Mikhaïl Ivanuitch.
IX
The relations of Marya Alekséyevna to Lopukhóf resemble a farce; Marya Alekséyevna’s character is exposed by them in a ridiculous way. Both these facts are quite against my will. If I had wanted to preserve a high standard of art, I should have concealed Marya Alekséyevna’s relations to Lopukhóf, the description of which gives this part of my story the nature of a vaudeville. To hide them would have been easy. The essential element of the matter could have been expressed without them. Would it have been at all surprising if the tutor, even if he had not entered into this friendship with Marya Alekséyevna, had found occasion sometimes, though seldom, to say a few words with the daughter of a family where he is giving lessons? Does it take many words to engender love? There was no need of Marya Alekséyevna putting in a hand
