Laevsky also found it strange that Atchmianov led him to the back door and waved his hand as if asking him to walk softly and keep silent.
‘‘This way, this way . . .’’ said Atchmianov, cautiously opening the door and going into the hallway on tiptoe. ‘‘Quiet, quiet, I beg you... They may hear you.’’
He listened, drew a deep breath, and said in a whisper:
‘‘Open this door and go in . . . Don’t be afraid.’’
Laevsky, perplexed, opened the door and went into a room with a low ceiling and curtained windows. A candle stood on the table.
‘‘Whom do you want?’’ someone asked in the next room. ‘‘Is that you, Miuridka?’’
Laevsky turned to that room and saw Kirilin, and beside him Nadezhda Fyodorovna.
He did not hear what was said to him, backed his way out, and did not notice how he ended up in the street. The hatred of von Koren, and the uneasiness—all of it vanished from his soul. Going home, he awkwardly swung his right arm and looked intently under his feet, trying to walk where it was even. At home, in his study, he paced up and down, rubbing his hands and making angular movements with his shoulders and neck, as though his jacket and shirt were too tight for him, then lighted a candle and sat down at the table . . .
XVI
‘‘THE HUMANE SCIENCES, of which you speak, will only satisfy human thought when, in their movement, they meet the exact sciences and go on alongside them. Whether they will meet under a microscope, or in the soliloquies of a new Hamlet, or in a new religion, I don’t know, but I think that the earth will be covered with an icy crust before that happens. The most staunch and vital of all humanitarian doctrines is, of course, the teaching of Christ, but look at how differently people understand even that! Some teach us to love all our neighbors, but at the same time make an exception for soldiers, criminals, and madmen: the first they allow to be killed in war, the second to be isolated or executed, and the third they forbid to marry. Other interpreters teach the love of all our neighbors without exception, without distinguishing between pluses and minuses. According to their teaching, if a consumptive or a murderer or an epileptic comes to you and wants to marry your daughter— give her to him; if cretins declare war on the physically and mentally healthy—offer your heads. This preaching of love for love’s sake, like art for art’s sake, if it could come to power, in the end would lead mankind to total extinction, and thus the most grandiose villainy of all that have ever been done on earth would be accomplished. There are a great many interpretations, and if there are many, then serious thought cannot be satisfied by any one of them, and to the mass of all interpretations hastens to add its own. Therefore never put the question, as you say, on philosophical or so-called Christian grounds; by doing so, you merely get further away from solving it.’’
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
