X
Iván Dmítritch lay in the same position as on the day before, holding his head in his hands, his legs being doubled up underneath him.
"Good morning, my friend," said Andréi Yéfimitch. "You are not asleep?"
"In the first place I am not your friend," said Iván Dmítritch, keeping his face turned towards the pillow, "and in the second, you are troubling yourself in vain; you will not get from me a single word." "That is strange," said Andréi Yéfimitch. "Yesterday we were speaking as friends, but suddenly you took offence and stopped short.... Perhaps I spoke awkwardly, or expressed opinions differing widely from your own."
"You won't catch me!" said Iván Dmítritch, rising from the bed and looking at the doctor ironically and suspiciously. "You may go and spy and cross-examine somewhere else; here there is nothing for you to do. I know very well why you came yesterday."
"That is a strange idea," laughed the doctor. "But why do you assume that I am spying?"
"I assume it.... Whether spy or doctor it is all the same."
"Yes, but ... excuse me...." The doctor sat on a stool beside the bed, and shook his head reproachfully. "Even suppose you are right, suppose I am following your words only in order to betray you to the police, what would happen? They would arrest you and try you. But then, in the dock or in prison would you be worse off than here? In exile or penal servitude you would not suffer any more than now.... What, then, do you fear?"
Apparently these words affected Iván Dmítritch. He sat down quietly.
It was five o'clock, the hour when Andréi Yéfimitch usually walked up and down his room and Dáryushka asked him whether it was time for his beer. The weather was calm and clear.
"After dinner I went out for a walk, and you see where I've come," said the doctor. "It is almost spring."
"What month is it?" asked Iván Dmítritch. "March?"
"Yes, we are at the end of March."
"Is it very muddy?"
"Not very. The paths in the garden are clear."
"How glorious it would be to drive somewhere outside the town!" said Iván Dmítritch, rubbing his red eyes as if he were sleepy, "and then to return to a warm comfortable study ... and to be cured of headache by a decent doctor.... For years past I have not lived like a human being.... Things are abominable here,—intolerable, disgusting!"
After last evening's excitement he was tired and weak, and he spoke unwillingly. His fingers twitched, and from his face it was plain that his head ached badly.
"Between a warm, comfortable study and this ward there is no difference," said Andréi Yéfimitch. "The rest and tranquillity of a man are not outside but within him."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Ordinary men find good and evil outside, that is, in their carriages and comfortable rooms; but the thinking man finds them within himself."
"Go and preach that philosophy in Greece, where it is warm and smells of oranges—it doesn't suit this climate. With whom was it I spoke of Diogenes? With you?"
"Yes, yesterday with me."
"Diogenes had no need of a study and a warm house, he was comfortable without them.... Lie in a tub and eat oranges and olives! Set him down in Russia—not in December, but even in May. He would freeze even in May with the cold."
"No. Cold, like every other feeling, may be disregarded. As Marcus Aurelius said, pain is the living conception of pain; make an effort of the will to change this conception, cease to complain, and the pain disappears. The wise man, the man of thought and penetration, is distinguished by his contempt for suffering; he is always content and he is surprised by nothing."
"That means that I am an idiot because I suffer, because I am discontented, and marvel at the baseness of men."
"Your discontent is in vain. Think more, and you will realise how trifling are all the things which now excite you.... Try to understand life—in this is true beatitude."
"Understand!" frowned Iván Dmítritch. "External, internal.... Excuse me, but I cannot understand you. I know only one thing," he continued, rising and looking angrily at the doctor. "I know only that God created me of warm blood and nerves; yes! and organic tissue, if it be capable of life, must respond to irritation. And I respond to it! Pain I answer with tears and cries, baseness with indignation, meanness with repulsion. In my mind, that is right, and it is that which is called life. The lower the organism the less susceptible is it, and the more feebly it responds to irritation; the higher it is the more sensitively it responds. How is it you do not know that? A doctor—yet you do not know such truisms! If you would despise suffering, be always contented, and marvel at nothing, you must lower yourself to the condition of that...." Iván Dmítritch pointed to the fat, greasy muzhik, "or inure yourself to suffering until you lose all susceptibility—in other words, cease to live. Excuse me, but I am not a wise man and not a philosopher," continued Iván Dmítritch irritably, "and I do not understand these things. I am not in a condition to reason."
"But you reason admirably."
"The Stoics whom you travesty were remarkable men, but their teaching died two thousand years ago, and since then it has not advanced, nor will it advance, an inch, for it is not a practical or a living creed. It was successful only with a minority who spent their lives in study and trifled with gospels of all sorts; the majority never understood it.... A creed which teaches indifference to wealth, indifference to the conveniences of life, and contempt for suffering, is quite incomprehensible to the great majority who never knew either wealth or the conveniences of life, and to whom contempt for suffering would mean contempt for their own lives, which are made up of feelings of hunger, cold, loss, insult, and a Hamlet-like terror of death. All life lies in these feelings, and life may be hated or wearied of, but never despised. Yes, I repeat it, the teaching of the Stoics can never have a future; from the beginning of time, life has consisted in sensibility to pain and response to irritation.[1] Iván Dmítritch suddenly lost the thread of his thoughts, ceased speaking, and nibbed his forehead irritably.
"I had something important to say, but have gone off the track," he continued. "What was I saying? Yes, this is it. One of these Stoics sold himself into slavery to redeem a friend. Now what does that mean but that even a Stoic responded to irritation, for to perform such a magnanimous deed as the min of one's self for the sake of a friend demands a disturbed and sympathetic heart I have forgotten here in prison all that I learnt, otherwise I should have oilier illustrations. But think of Christ! Christ rebelled against actuality by weeping, by smiling, by grieving, by anger, even by weariness. Not with a smile did He go forth to meet suffering, nor did He despise death, but prayed in the garden of Gethsemane that this cup might pass from Him."[2]
Iván Dmítritch laughed and sat down.
"Suppose that contentment and tranquillity are not outside but within a man," he continued. "Suppose that we must despise suffering and marvel at nothing. But you do not say on what foundation you base this theory. You are a wise man? A philosopher?"
"I am not a philosopher, but everyone must preach this because it is rational."
"But I wish to know why in this matter of understanding life, despising suffering, and the rest of it, you consider yourself competent to judge? Have you ever suffered? What is your idea of suffering? Were you ever flogged when you were a child?"
"No, my parents were averse to corporal punishment."
"But my father flogged me cruelly. He was a stern hemorrhoidal official with a long nose and a yellow neck. But what of you? In your whole life no one has ever laid a finger on you, and you are as healthy as a bull. You grew up under your father's wing, studied at his expense, and then dropped at once into a fat sinecure. More than twenty years you have lived in free lodgings, with free fire and free lights, with servants, with the right to work how, and as much as, you like, or to do nothing. By character you were an idle and a feeble man, and you strove to build up your life so as to avoid trouble. You left your work to feldschers and other scoundrels, and sat at home in warmth and quiet, heaped up money, read books, and enjoyed your own reflections about all kinds of exalted nonsense, and"—Iván Dmítritch looked at the doctor's nose—"drank beer. In one word, you have not seen life, you know nothing about it, and of realities you have only a theoretical knowledge. Yes, you despise suffering and marvel at nothing for very good reasons; because your theory of the vanity of things, external and internal happiness, contempt for life, for suffering and for death, and so on—this is the philosophy best suited to a Russian lie-abed. You see, for instance, a muzhik beating his wife. Why interfere? let him beat her! It is all the same, both will be dead sooner, or later, and then, does not the wife-beater injure himself and not his victim? To get drunk is stupid and wrong, but the man who drinks dies, and the woman who drinks dies also! A woman comes to you with a toothache. Well, what of that? Pain is the conception of pain, without sickness you cannot live, all must die, and therefore take yourself off, my good woman, and don't interfere with my thoughts and my vodka! A young man comes to you for advice: what should he do, how ought he to live? Before answering, most men would think, but your answer is always ready: Aspire to understand life and to real goodness! And what is this fantastic real goodness? No answer! We are imprisoned behind iron bars, we rot and we are tortured, but this, in reality, is reasonable and beautiful because between this ward and a comfortable warm study there is no real difference! A convenient philosophy; your conscience is clean, and you feel yourself to be a wise man. No, sir, this is not philosophy, not breadth of view, but idleness, charlatanism, somnolent folly.... Yes," repeated Iván Dmítritch angrily. "You despise suffering, but squeeze your finger in the door and you will howl for your life!"
"But suppose I do not howl," said Andréi Yéfimitch, smiling indulgently.
"What! Well, if you had a stroke of paralysis, or if some impudent fellow, taking advantage of his position in the world, insulted you' publicly, and you had no redress—then you would know what it meant to tell others to understand life and aspire to real good."
"This is original," said Andréi Yéfimitch, beaming with satisfaction and rubbing his hands. "I am delighted with your love of generalisation; and the character which you have just drawn is simply brilliant. I confess that conversation with you gives me great pleasure. Rut now, as I have heard you out, will you listen to me...."