Anna Karenina - Part 8 - Page 43/52

"I would only make one condition," pursued the old prince.

"Alphonse Karr said a capital thing before the war with Prussia:

'You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who

advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of

advance-guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to

lead them all!'"

"A nice lot the editors would make!" said Katavasov, with a loud

roar, as he pictured the editors he knew in this picked legion.

"But they'd run," said Dolly, "they'd only be in the way."

"Oh, if they ran away, then we'd have grape-shot or Cossacks with

whips behind them," said the prince.

"But that's a joke, and a poor one too, if you'll excuse my

saying so, prince," said Sergey Ivanovitch.

"I don't see that it was a joke, that..." Levin was beginning,

but Sergey Ivanovitch interrupted him.

"Every member of society is called upon to do his own special

work," said he. "And men of thought are doing their work when

they express public opinion. And the single-hearted and full

expression of public opinion is the service of the press and a

phenomenon to rejoice us at the same time. Twenty years ago we

should have been silent, but now we have heard the voice of the

Russian people, which is ready to rise as one man and ready to

sacrifice itself for its oppressed brethren; that is a great step

and a proof of strength."

"But it's not only making a sacrifice, but killing Turks," said

Levin timidly. "The people make sacrifices and are ready to make

sacrifices for their soul, but not for murder," he added,

instinctively connecting the conversation with the ideas that had

been absorbing his mind.

"For their soul? That's a most puzzling expression for a natural

science man, do you understand? What sort of thing is the soul?"

said Katavasov, smiling.

"Oh, you know!"

"No, by God, I haven't the faintest idea!" said Katavasov with a

loud roar of laughter.

"'I bring not peace, but a sword,' says Christ," Sergey

Ivanovitch rejoined for his part, quoting as simply as though it

were the easiest thing to understand the very passage that had

always puzzled Levin most.

"That's so, no doubt," the old man repeated again. He was

standing near them and responded to a chance glance turned in his

direction.

"Ah, my dear fellow, you're defeated, utterly defeated!" cried

Katavasov good-humoredly.