________________________________________________
_ "Do you know, Kostya, with whom Sergey Ivanovitch traveled on his
way here?" said Dolly, doling out cucumbers and honey to the
children; "with Vronsky! He's going to Servia."
"And not alone; he's taking a squadron out with him at his own
expense," said Katavasov.
"That's the right thing for him," said Levin. "Are volunteers
still going out then?" he added, glancing at Sergey Ivanovitch.
Sergey Ivanovitch did not answer. He was carefully with a blunt
knife getting a live bee covered with sticky honey out of a cup
full of white honeycomb.
"I should think sol You should have seen what was going on at the
station yesterday!" said Katavasov, biting with a juicy sound
into a cucumber.
"Well, what is one to make of it? For mercy's sake, do explain to
me, Sergey Ivanovitch, where are all those volunteers going, whom
are they fighting with?" asked the old prince, unmistakably
taking up a conversation that had sprung up in Levin's absence.
"With the Turks," Sergey Ivanovitch answered, smiling serenely,
as he extricated the bee, dark with honey and helplessly kicking,
and put it with the knife on a stout aspen leaf.
"But who has declared war on the Turks?--Ivan Ivanovitch Ragozov
and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, assisted by Madame Stahl?"
"No one has declared war, but people sympathize with their
neighbors' sufferings and are eager to help them," said Sergey
Ivanovitch.
"But the prince is not speaking of help," said Levin, coming to
the assistance of his father-in-law, "but of war. The prince says
that private persons cannot take part in war without the
permission of the government."
"Kostya, mind, that's a bee! Really, they'll sting us!" said
Dolly, waving away a wasp.
"But that's not a bee, it's a wasp," said Levin.
"Well now, well, what's your own theory?" Katavasov said to Levin
with a smile, distinctly challenging him to a discussion. "Why
have not private persons the right to do so?"
"Oh, my theory's this: war is on one side such a beastly, cruel,
and awful thing, that no one man, not to speak of a Christian,
can individually take upon himself the responsibility of
beginning wars; that can only be done by a government, which is
called upon to do this, and is driven inevitably into war. On the
other hand, both political science and common sense teach us that
in matters of state, and especially in the matter of war, private
citizens must forego their personal individual
Sergey Ivanovitch and Katavasov had their replies ready, and both
began speaking at the same time.
"But the point is, my dear fellow, that there may be cases when
the government does not carry out the will of the citizens and
then the public asserts its will," said Katavasov.
But evidently Sergey Ivanovitch did not approve of this answer.
His brows contracted at Katavasov's words and he said something
else.
"You don't put the matter in its true light. There is no question
here of a declaration of war, but simply the expression of a
human Christian feeling. Our brothers, one with us in religion
and in race, are being massacred. Even supposing they were not
our brothers nor fellow- Christians, but simply children, women,
old people, feeling is aroused and Russians go eagerly to help in
stopping these atrocities. Fancy, if you were going along the
street and saw drunken men beating a woman or a child--I imagine
you would not stop to inquire whether war had been declared on
the men, but would throw yourself on them, and protect the
victim."
"But I should not kill them," said Levin.
"Yes, you would kill them."
"I don't know. If I saw that, I might give way to my impulse of
the moment, but I can't say beforehand. And such a momentary
impulse there is not, and there cannot be, in the case of the
oppression of the Slavonic peoples."
"Possibly for you there is not; but for others there is," said
Sergey Ivanovitch, frowning with displeasure. "There are
traditions still extant among the people of Slavs of the true
faith suffering under the yoke of the 'unclean sons of Hagar.'
The people have heard of the sufferings of their brethren and
have spoken."
"Perhaps so," said Levin evasively; "but I don't see it. I'm one
of the people myself, and I don't feel it."
"Here am I too," said the old prince. "I've been staying abroad
and reading the papers, and I must own, up to the time of the
Bulgarian atrocities, I couldn't make out why it was all the
Russians were all of a sudden so fond of their Slavonic brethren,
while I didn't feel the slightest affection for them. I was very
much upset, thought I was a monster, or that it was the influence
of Carlsbad on me. But since I have been here, my mind's been set
at rest. I see that there are people besides me who're only
interested in Russia, and not in their Slavonic brethren. Here's
Konstantin too."
"Personal opinions mean nothing in such a case," said Sergey
Ivanovitch; "it's not a matter of personal opinions when all
Russia--the whole people--has expressed its will."
"But excuse me, I don't see that. The people don't know anything
about it, if you come to that," said the old prince.
"Oh, papa! ...how can you say that? And last Sunday in
church?" said Dolly, listening to the conversation. "Please give
me a cloth," she said to the old man, who was looking at the
children with a smile. "Why, it's not possible that all . . ."
"But what was it in church on Sunday? The priest had been told to
read that. He read it. They didn't understand a word of it. Then
they were told that there was to be a collection for a pious
object in church; well, they pulled out their halfpence and gave
them, but what for they couldn't say."
"The people cannot help knowing; the sense of their own destinies
is always in the people, and at such moments as the present that
sense finds utterance," said Sergey Ivanovitch with conviction,
glancing at the old bee-keeper.
The handsome old man, with black grizzled beard and thick silvery
hair, stood motionless, holding a cup of honey, looking down from
the height of his tall figure with friendly serenity at the
gentlefolk, obviously understanding nothing of their conversation
and not caring to understand it.
"That's so, no doubt," he said, with a significant shake of his
head at Sergey Ivanovitch's words.
"Here, then, ask him. He knows nothing about it and thinks
nothing," said Levin. "Have you heard about the war, Mihalitch?"
he said, turning to him. "What they read in the church? What do
you think about it? Ought we to fight for the Christians?"
"What should we think? Alexander Nikolaevitch our Emperor has
thought for us; he thinks for us indeed in all things. It's
clearer for hint to see. Shall I bring a bit more bread? Give the
little lad some more? he said addressing Darya Alexandrovna and
pointing to Grisha, who had finished his crust.
"I don't need to ask," said Sergey Ivanovitch, "we have seen and
are seeing hundreds and hundreds of people who give up everything
to sense a just cause, come from every part of Russia, and
directly and clearly express their thought and aim. They bring
their halfpence or go themselves and say directly what for. What
does it mean?"
"It means, to my thinking," said Levin, who was beginning to get
warm, "that among eighty millions of people there can always be
found not hundreds, as now, but tens of thousands of people who
have lost caste, ne'er-do-weels, who are always ready to go
anywhere--to Pogatchev's bands, to Khiva, to Servia . . ."
"I tell you that it's not a case of hundreds or of
ne'er-do-weels, but the best representatives of the people!" said
Sergey Ivanovitch, with as much irritation as if he were
defending the last penny of his fortune. "And what of the
subscriptions? In this case it is a whole people directly
expressing their will."
"That word 'people' is so vague," said Levin. "Parish clerks,
teachers, and one in a thousand of the peasants, maybe, know what
it's all about. The rest of the eighty millions, like Mihalitch,
far from expressing their will, haven't the faintest idea what
there is for them to express their will about. What right have we
to say that this is the people's will?" _
Read next: Part Eight: Chapter 16
Read previous: Part Eight: Chapter 14
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