Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Eight/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
Levin, with long steps, strode along the highway, filled, not so much with his thoughts,—he could not as yet get rid of them,—as with a spiritual impulse, such as he had never known before.
The peasant's words had had in his soul the effect of an electric spark, suddenly condensing the cloud of dim, incoherent thoughts, which had not ceased to fill his mind, even while he was talking about the letting of his field.
He felt that some new impulse, inexplicable as yet, filled his heart with joy.
"Not to live for one's self, but for God! What God? Could he have said anything more meaningless than what he said? He said that we must live, not for ourselves, that is, for what interests and pleases us, but for something incomprehensible, for God, whom no one knows or can define. Still, call it nonsense, did I understand Feodor? Did n't I also feel convinced of its truth? Did I find it either false or absurd?
"Nay; I understood it, and find in it the same meaning as he finds, and understood it more completely and clearly than anything else in life. And not alone I, but all, all the world, perfectly understand this and have no doubt of it, and are unanimous in its favor.
"And I was seeking for miracles, and regretting that I could not see one which might fill me with amazement. A material miracle would have seduced me. But the real miracle, the only one possibly existing, surrounds me on all sides—and I have not remarked it.
"Feodor says Kirillof, the dvornik, lives for his belly. I know what he means by that. No rational being, none of us, can live in any other way. But Feodor says, too, that it is wrong to live for the belly, but that we should live for truth, for God; and I know what that means as well. I, and millions of men, muzhiks, and sages who have thought and written on the subject, or in their obscure language have talked about it, in the past and in the present,—we are in accord on one point; and that is, that we should live for 'the good.' The only knowledge that I and all men possess that is clear, indubitable, absolute, is here. We have not reached it by reason. Reason excludes it, for it has neither cause nor effect. 'The good,' if it had a cause, would cease to be the good; if it had an effect,—a reward,—it would cease to be the good. The good must be outside of the chain of cause and effect. And I know this, and we all know it. Can there be greater miracle than this?
"Have I really found the solution of my doubts? Shall I cease to suffer?" Levin asked himself as he followed the dusty road, insensible to weariness and heat, and feeling that his long travail was at an end. The sensation was so delightful, that he could not believe that it was true. He choked with emotion; his strength failed him; and he left the highroad, and went into the woods, and sat down under the shadow of an aspen on the unmown grass. He uncovered his moist forehead, and stretched himself out on the succulent wood-grass, and leaned his head on his hand.
"Yes, I must reflect and consider," he thought, looking attentively at the untrodden grass in front of him, and watching the movements of an earth-beetle crawling up the stalk of couch-grass, and stopped by a leaf. "What discovery have I made?" he said to himself, removing the leaf from the beetle's way, and bending down another stalk of couch-grass to help the beetle on. "What makes me so happy? What discovery have I made?"
"I have made no discovery. I have only opened my eyes to what I already know. I have learned to recognize that power which formerly gave me life, and gives me life again to-day. I have freed myself from error. I have come to know my master.
"I used to say that there was going on in my body, in the body of this grass, in the body of this beetle,"—the beetle did not want to go to the other stalk, but spread its wings, and flew away,—"incessant change of matter, in conformity to certain physical, chemical, and physiological laws; and in all of us, together with the aspens and the clouds, and the nebulae, there was evolution. Evolution from what? into what? Endless evolution and conflict.—But was conflict with the Infinite possible? And I was surprised to find nothing along this line, in spite of my best efforts, which could reveal to me the meaning of my life, my motives, my longings. But the consciousness that there is a meaning is, nevertheless, so strong and clear, that it forms the very foundation of my existence; and I marveled and rejoiced when the muzhik said, 'To live for God, for the soul.'
"Now I can say that I know the meaning of life: it is to live for God, for my own soul. And this meaning, in spite of its clearness, is mysterious and miraculous. And such is the meaning of all existence. Yes, there is pride," said he to himself, turning over on his stomach and beginning to tie into a knot the stalks of grass, while trying not to break them. "Not only pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. Yes, it is the wickedness of intellect," he repeated.
He succinctly went over in memory the course of his thought for the last two years, from the day when the idea of death struck him, on seeing his beloved brother hopelessly sick.
Then he had clearly resolved that, since man had no other prospect than suffering, death, and eternal oblivion, he must either commit suicide, or find the explanation of the problem of existence, and in such manner as to see in it something more than the cruel irony of a malevolent spirit.
But he had not done either, but continued to live, to think, and to feel. He had married, and had experienced new joys, which made him happy when he did not ponder on the meaning of life.
What did this mean? It meant that he was thinking badly, and living well. Without knowing it, he had been sustained by those spiritual verities which he had sucked in with his mother's milk, and he indulged in thought, not only now not recognizing those truths, but even strenuously avoiding them. Now it was clear to him that he could live only through the blessed influence of the faith in which he had been taught.
"What should I have been, how should I have lived, if I had not absorbed these beliefs.... if I had not known that I must live for God, and not for the satisfaction of my desires? I should have been a thief, a liar, a murderer. Nothing of what seems the chief joy of my life would have had any existence for me."
And, though he made the most strenuous efforts of his imagination, he could not picture to himself what kind of a wild creature he might have been, if he had not really known the aim of his existence.
"I was in search of an answer to my question; thought could not give it, for the problem was too lofty. Life itself, with the innate knowledge of good and evil, alone could give me an answer. And this knowledge I did not acquire. It was given to me, like all the rest; given, I could not know where to get it. Did I get it from reason? But would reason ever have proved to me that I ought to love my neighbor, instead of choking him? I was taught it in my childhood; but I believed it gladly, because it was already existent in my soul. Reason discovered the struggle for existence,—that law which demands the overthrow of every obstacle in the way of our desires. That is the result of reason; but reason has nothing to do with loving our neighbor."