The Russian Masters: Works by Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev and More. Максим Горький
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Don't mind me, Savva, it's nothing. It was so unexpected. I thought such people didn't really exist—that they were just a fiction of the imagination. And then, all of a sudden, to find you, my brother—You are not joking, Savva? Look me straight in the eye.
SAVVA
But why did you get frightened? They are not so terrible after all. In fact, they are very quiet, orderly people, and very deliberate. They meet and meet, and weigh and consider a long time, and then—bang!—a sparrow drops dead. The next minute there is another sparrow in its place, hopping about on the very same branch. Why are you looking at my hands?
LIPA
Oh, nothing. Give me your hand—no, your right hand.
SAVVA
Here.
LIPA
How heavy it is. Feel how cold mine are. Go on, tell me all about it.
It's so interesting.
SAVVA
What's there to tell? They are a brave set of people, I must admit; but it is a bravery of the head, not of the hands. And their heads are partitioned off into little chambers; they are always careful not to do anything which is unnecessary or harmful. Now you can't clear a dense forest by cutting down one tree at a time, can you? That's what they do. While they chop at one end, it grows up at the other. You can't accomplish anything that way; it's labor lost. I proposed a scheme to them, something on a larger scale. They got frightened, wouldn't hear of it. A little weak-kneed they are. So I left them. Let them practise virtue. A narrow-minded bunch. They lack breadth of vision.
LIPA
You say it as calmly as if you were joking.
SAVVA
No, I am not joking.
LIPA
Aren't you afraid?
SAVVA
I? So far I haven't been, and I don't ever expect to be. What worse can happen to a man than to have been born? It's like asking a man who is drowning whether he is not afraid of getting wet. (Laughs)
LIPA
So that's the kind you are.
SAVVA
One thing I learned from them: respect for dynamite. It's a powerful instrument, dynamite is—nothing like it for a convincing argument.
LIPA
You are only twenty-three years old. You have no beard yet, not even a moustache.
SAVVA (feeling his face)
Yes, a measly growth; but what conclusions do you draw from that?
LIPA
Fear will come to you yet.
SAVVA
No. If I haven't been frightened so far by watching life, there's nothing else to fear. Life, yes. I embrace the earth with my eyes, the whole of it, the entire little planetoid, and I can find nothing more terrible on it than man and human life. And I am not afraid of man.
LIPA (scarcely listening to him; ecstatically)
Yes, that's the word. That's it. Savva, dear, I am not afraid of bodily suffering either. Burn me on a slow fire. Cut me to pieces. I won't cry. I'll laugh. I know I will. But there is another thing I am afraid of. I am afraid of people's suffering, of the misery from which they cannot escape. When in the stillness of the night, broken only by the striking of the hours, I think of how much suffering there is all around us—aimless, needless suffering; suffering one doesn't even know of—when I think of that, I am chilled with terror. I go down on my knees and pray. I pray to God, saying to Him: "Oh, Lord, if there has to be a victim, take me, but give the people joy, give them peace, give them forgetfulness. Oh, Lord, all powerful as Thou art—"
SAVVA
Yes.
LIPA
I have read about a man who was eaten by an eagle, and his flesh grew again overnight. If my body could turn into bread and joy for the people, I would consent to live in eternal torture in order to feed the unfortunate. There'll soon be a holiday here in the monastery—
SAVVA
I know.
LIPA
There is an ikon of the Saviour there with the touching inscription:
"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden—
SAVVA
And I will give you rest." I know.
LIPA
It is regarded as a wonder-working ikon. Go there on the feast-day. It's like a torrent pouring into the monastery, an ocean rolling toward its walls; and this whole ocean is made up entirely of human tears, of human sorrow and misery. Such monstrosities, such cripples. After witnessing one of those scenes, I walk about as in a dream. There are faces with such a depth of misery in them that one can never forget them as long as one lives. Why, Savva, I was a gay young thing before I saw all that. There is one man who comes here every year—they have nicknamed him King Herod—
SAVVA
He is here already. I've seen him.
LIPA
Have you?
SAVVA
Yes, he has got a tragic face.
LIPA
Long ago, when still a young man, he killed his son by accident, and from that day he keeps coming here. He has an awful face. And all of them are waiting for a miracle.
SAVVA
Yes. There is something worse than inescapable human suffering, however.
LIPA
What?
SAVVA (lightly)
Inescapable human stupidity.
LIPA
I don't know.
SAVVA
I do. Here you see only a small fragment of life, but if you could see and hear all of it—When I first read their newspapers, I laughed and thought it was a joke. I thought they were published in some asylum for the insane. But I found it was no joke. It was really serious, Lipa, really serious. And then my head began to ache with an intolerable pain. (He presses his hand to his forehead)
LIPA
Your head began to ache?
SAVVA
Yes. It's a peculiar pain. You don't know what it is like. Few people know what it is. And the pain continued until I resolved—
LIPA
What?
SAVVA
To annihilate everything.
LIPA
What are you saying?
SAVVA
Yes, yes, everything. All that's old.
LIPA (in amazement)
And man?
SAVVA
Man is to remain, of course. What is in his way is the stupidity that, piling up for thousands of years, has grown into a mountain. The modern sages want to build on this mountain, but that, of course, will lead to nothing but making the mountain still higher. It is the mountain itself that must be removed. It must be levelled to its foundation, down to the bare earth. Do you understand?
LIPA
No, I don't understand you. You talk so strangely.
SAVVA
Annihilate everything!