"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."