“It is not, indeed, only Shakespeare, or Pushkin, or Molière, it is all the science and literature of centuries, that has prepared the way for this (as you call it) ‘new theory.’ In our hearts, we have already long ago accepted it; we are only hesitating to proclaim it loudly, because it destroys all our laws and all our religions, and the whole working of our worn-out social machinery. We are not yet rid of the ideals of the Middle Ages; we cannot tear ourselves away from the hell that we picture to ourselves as clearly as did Dante, nor from the heaven that, in our imagination, is quite as dull and colourless as that of the immortal Florentine. But time passes, and we have reached the last days of the Middle Ages. The New Era will begin when people will at last dare to proclaim loudly that there are no saints and sinners, but only the sick and the healthy. A healthy man can find heaven on earth, while a diseased nature lives in a worse hell than any that can be invented by the most glowing imagination. Only when we realize this, shall we understand the Gospel. Until now, during all these nineteen centuries, we have not understood it at all, but have preserved it, feeling instinctively that we shall need it in time. Christ’s love for ‘sinners’ will become clear to us, and we ourselves shall be filled with profound pity for these sufferers. Even to-day, no one dreams of hating the insane, or being incensed against them, or punishing them. Gradually we shall begin to regard in the same light all malicious, immoral, envious natures, pitying them boundlessly for being afflicted with such cruel diseases. The teaching of Christ, hitherto but half understood, will become clear and simple.”
“But, allow me!”—interrupted Irene. “How about murderers? Will you expect us to pity them, too, and shed tears over their moral sufferings?”
“Undoubtedly. Murderers suffer from the most terrible of all moral diseases, and therefore deserve quite particular attention. I don’t know whether you have ever troubled to read accounts of the executions of criminals. I have often done so with great interest. In France, as soon as a man is condemned to death, he is fallen upon by a whole army of reporters, who repeat the minutest details to the public: what the prisoner ate, how much he drank, how he slept, and what he said. This wild chase after a sensational line sometimes unconsciously brings to light important facts. Recently, for instance, I read an account of the guillotining in a provincial town of a man who had killed his father. He had, in cold blood, cut the old man’s throat, in order to come more quickly into his little inheritance. He was, of course, very soon caught—these diseased creatures always are. In prison he astonished everybody by a complete indifference to his murdered father, as well as to his own fate. His sentence startled him for a moment, but, a minute later, he simply and confidently told his gaolers that he hoped to keep up his courage and his spirits to the last moment if, before mounting the scaffold, they could give him some black coffee and some white wine. This desire to make a show of courage before the public is the outcome of a very primitive human impulse. The lower a man’s mental development, the more he gives for his neighbour’s praise. Natures with loftier aspirations set a smaller value on public opinion, being, indeed, sometimes quite indifferent to it.
“The prisoner’s wish is granted, and having swallowed his wine and his coffee he leaves the prison with a firm step, accompanied by a priest, who does not for a moment leave his side. On mounting the scaffold the murderer turns to the assembled crowd and makes a speech, in which he declares his complete repentance and bequeaths his ill-gotten inheritance to charities. These are of course all phrases instilled into him by the priest for the edification of the public. The prisoner repeats them like a parrot, still for the sake of public opinion. In his heart he does not repent in the least, otherwise he could not have previously shown the supreme indifference to his dead father that had so enraged his gaolers.
“At last the comedy is over. The murderer, pleased with his pose of piety, turns round and sees the guillotine knife. Immediately, the savage brute in him awakens. He fights, struggles, scratches, bites and screams—he sells his life dearly. Four other savage brutes throw themselves on him and drag him to the knife. The crowd glumly watches the nauseating scene, and gradually disperses.
“‘The public,’ writes the simple-minded reporter, ‘was present at the triumph of justice, but instead of joy, the prevalent impression was one of having witnessed something incomplete and unsatisfactory.’
“What wonder, indeed! Whatever laws you may invent, whatever religions you may propagate, human instinct always was, is, and will be, more reliable than them all. Instinct pointed out to that crowd that a mistake had been made. No one knew where the mistake lay, but its disturbing presence made itself clearly felt.
“It is the same instinct that sometimes makes people act, in spite of themselves, apparently against their convictions. I remember once being taken to see a new prison, built according to the very latest ideas and principles. The criminals had not yet been transferred into their new quarters. The founder led me with pride through the enormous, lofty, light, excellently ventilated wards, showed me the perfect sanitary arrangements, the wash-stands, the hygienic beds, the luxurious baths, and the kitchen with all the latest and most modern improvements. The government had evidently built, for criminals, this magnificent sanatorium as a reward for the crimes they had committed. Leaving our honest little peasant to starve and freeze as he will, the powers that be had used the money extorted from him in taxes to provide robbers and thieves and murderers with comfortable free lodgings, including light, warmth, excellent food and clothing! In answer to my perplexed question, the prison inspector explained to me that the prisoner is punished by being deprived of his liberty. What an explanation! Liberty is dear to people who know how to profit by it. Of what use is it to those miserable wretches who look upon vodka and cheap tobacco as life’s greatest treasures? They can get both in prison, to say nothing of the gayest and most congenial society! Such prisons are a mockery of justice, and a perversion of common sense. All this and much more could be said to the Government—but the fault-finder would be wrong. The whole kernel of the matter lies in the fact that though we still refuse to accept the new teaching, though we regard it with contempt and hold it up to derision, we nevertheless instinctively already build, not prisons, but—sanatoria. As usual, instinct is more far-seeing than reason or the law. The time is not far off when prison inspectors (who have been transferred by chance into these new sanatoria, together with all the remaining out-of-date paraphernalia of the old institutions) will be replaced by doctors. Then, and only then, will begin the real recovery and redemption of society, never to be attained by the naïve isolation of acute cases of disease, or the destruction of sick people as if they were mad dogs.”
“But how can such cures be possible? These are surely mere dreams!”
“Why mere dreams? Much has already been done—but medicine is unfortunately still in its infancy. The future will undoubtedly bring to light great discoveries—means and possibilities must only be provided for experiments. Such experiments, indeed, are already receiving attention everywhere. Only a few days ago, for instance, I read in the papers that an Italian professor, director of a gynæcological institution, had announced at a congress that, according to the results of his researches, all female criminals suffered from various severe forms of women’s diseases. He suggested that instead of imprisonment they should undergo cures in gynæcological hospitals. Can you imagine anything more wildly stupid than sentencing a woman to death, or shutting her up for life in a prison, only because she needs to undergo a surgical operation? Perhaps one can imagine just one thing that is still more uncivilized—the idea that she will burn for ever in hell, because at the birth of her children she was attended by a clumsy or ignorant midwife!