XIV
Expecting to have a private talk with Katúsha, as usual, after tea, Nekhlúdoff sat by the side of Kryltzóff, conversing with him. Among other things he told him the story of Makár’s crime and about his request to him. Kryltzóff listened attentively, gazing at Nekhlúdoff with glistening eyes.
“Yes,” said Kryltzóff suddenly, “I often think that here we are going side by side with them, and who are they? The same for whose sake we are going, and yet we not only do not know them, but do not even wish to know them. And they, even worse than that, they hate us and look upon us as enemies. This is terrible.”
“There is nothing terrible about it,” broke in Novódvoroff. “The masses always worship power only. The government is in power, and they worship it and hate us. Tomorrow we shall have the power, and they will worship us,” he said with his grating voice. At that moment a volley of abuse and the rattle of chains sounded from behind the wall, something was heard thumping against it and screaming and shrieking, someone was being beaten, and someone was calling out, “Murder! help!”
“Hear them, the beasts! What intercourse can there be between us and such as them?” quietly remarked Novódvoroff.
“You call them beasts, and Nekhlúdoff was just telling me about such an action!” irritably retorted Kryltzóff, and went on to say how Makár was risking his life to save a fellow-villager. “That is not the action of a beast, it is heroism.”
“Sentimentality!” Novódvoroff ejaculated ironically; “it is difficult for us to understand the emotions of these people and the motives on which they act. You see generosity in the act, and it may be simply jealousy of that other criminal.”
“How is it that you never wish to see anything good in another?” Mary Pávlovna said suddenly, flaring up.
“How can one see what does not exist!”
“How does it not exist, when a man risks dying a terrible death?”
“I think,” said Novódvoroff, “that if we mean to do our work, the first condition is that” (here Kondrátieff put down the book he was reading by the lamplight and began to listen attentively to his master’s words) “we should not give way to fancy, but look at things as they are. We should do all in our power for the masses, and expect nothing in return. The masses can only be the object of our activity, but cannot be our fellow-workers as long as they remain in that state of inertia they are in at present,” he went on, as if delivering a lecture. “Therefore, to expect help from them before the process of development—that process which we are preparing them for—has taken place is an illusion.”
“What process of development?” Kryltzóff began, flushing all over. “We say that we are against arbitrary rule and despotism, and is this not the most awful despotism?”
“No despotism whatever,” quietly rejoined Novódvoroff. “I am only saying that I know the path that the people must travel, and can show them that path.”
“But how can you be sure that the path you show is the true path? Is this not the same kind of despotism that lay at the bottom of the Inquisition, all persecutions, and the great revolution? They, too, knew the one true way, by means of their science.”
“Their having erred is no proof of my going to err; besides, there is a great difference between the ravings of idealogues and the facts based on sound, economic science.” Novódvoroff’s voice filled the room; he alone was speaking, all the rest were silent.
“They are always disputing,” Mary Pávlovna said, when there was a moment’s silence.
“And you yourself, what do you think about it?” Nekhlúdoff asked her.
“I think Kryltzóff is right when he says we should not force our views on the people.”
“And you, Katúsha?” asked Nekhlúdoff with a smile, waiting anxiously for her answer, fearing she would say something awkward.
“I think the common people are wronged,” she said, and blushed scarlet. “I think they are dreadfully wronged.”
“That’s right, Máslova, quite right,” cried Nabátoff. “They are terribly wronged, the people, and they must not be wronged, and therein lies the whole of our task.”
“A curious idea of the object of revolution,” Novódvoroff remarked crossly, and began to smoke.
“I cannot talk to him,” said Kryltzóff in a whisper, and was silent.
“And it is much better not to talk,” Nekhlúdoff said.