“Oh! how can you say that?” cried Soloveitchik. “How was it possible for you to estimate the wealth of his spiritual emotions?”
“Such emotions were very monotonous. His life’s happiness consisted in the acceptance of every misfortune without a murmur, and its wealth, in the total renunciation of life’s joys and material benefits. He was a beggar by choice, a fantastic personage whose life was sacrificed to an idea of which he himself had no clear conception.”
Soloveitchik wrung his hands.
“Oh! you cannot imagine how it distresses me to hear this!” he exclaimed.
“Really, Soloveitchik, you’re quite hysterical,” said Sanine, in surprise. “I have not told you anything extraordinary. Possibly the subject is, to you, a painful one?”
“Oh! most painful. I am always thinking, thinking, till my head seems as if it would burst. Was all that really an error, nothing more? I grope about, as in a dark room, and there is no one to tell me what I ought to do. Why do we live? Tell me that.”
“Why? That nobody knows.”
“And should we not live for the future, so that later on, at least, mankind may have a golden age?”
“There will never be a golden age. If the world and mankind could become better all in a moment, then, perhaps, a golden age would be possible. But that cannot be. Progress towards improvement is slow, and man can only see the step in front of him, and that immediately behind him. You and I have not lived the life of a Roman slave, nor that of some savage of the Stone Age, and therefore we cannot appreciate the boon of our civilization. Thus, if there should ever be a golden age, the men of that period will not perceive any difference between their lives and those of their ancestors. Man moves along an endless road, and to wish to level the road to happiness would be like adding new units to a number that is infinite.”
“Then you believe that it all means nothing—that all is of no avail?”