Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Eight/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
Levin remembered a recent scene between Dolly and her children. The children had been left alone, and had amused themselves by making raspberry jam over a can dle, and throwing milk into each other's faces. Their mother, catching them in the act, scolded them in their uncle's presence, and sought to make them understand how much work was involved in what they were destroying, that the labor was performed for their benefit; that, if they broke the cups, they could n't have anything to drink from; and if they wasted their milk, they would n't have any more, and would starve to death.
Levin was struck by the indifference and skepticism with which the children heard their mother's words. They were only sorry to have their interesting sport interrupted, and they did not believe a word of what she said. They did not believe, because they did not know the value of what they were playing with, and did not understand that they were destroying their own means of subsistence.
"That is all very well," they thought; "but there is nothing interesting or worth while in it, because it is always the same, and always will be. And it is monotonous. We don't have to think about it, it is done for us; but we do like to do something new and original; and here we were making jam in a cup over the candle, and squirting the milk into each others' faces. It is fun. It is new, and not half so stupid as to drink milk out of a cup."
"Is it not thus that we act, is it not the way I have acted, in trying to penetrate by reasoning the secrets of nature and the problem of human life? Is it not the same that all the philosophers have done with their theories which lead, by a course of reasoning strange and unnatural to man, to the knowledge of what he long has known, and known so surely that without it he could not live? Do we not see clearly, in the development of the theory of each, that the real meaning of human existence is as indubitably known as it is known to Feodor, the muzhik; and do they see any more clearly than he does the principal meaning of life? Do they not all come back to this, even though it be by a route which is often equivocal? If we were to leave the children to get their own living, make their own utensils, do the milking, instead of playing pranks, they would die of hunger.
"There, now! give us over to our own ideas and pas- sions, with no knowledge of our Creator, without the consciousness of moral good and evil, and what would be the result? We reason because we are spiritually satiated. We are children. Whence comes this joyous knowledge, which I share with the muzhik, and which alone gives me serenity of spirit? Where did I get it? Here am I, a Christian, brought up in the faith, surrounded by the blessings of Christianity, living upon these spiritual blessings without being conscious of them; and like children I have been reasoning, or at least trying to reason, out the meaning of life.
"But in the serious moments of life, in the hour of suffering, just as when children are cold and hungry, I turn to Him, and, like these same children whom their mother reprimands for their childish faults, I feel that my childish efforts to get out of the mad circle of reasoning have done me no good.
"Yes, reason has taught me nothing. What I know has been given, revealed to me through the heart, and especially through faith in the teachings of the Church.
"The Church, the Church?" repeated Levin, turning over again, and, as he rested his head on his hand, looking at a herd of cattle down by the river at a distance. "Can I really believe all that the Church teaches?" said he, to test himself, and to bring up everything that might destroy his present feeling of security. He expressly called to mind the Church teachings which more than all had seemed strange to him, and disgusted him.
"Creation? Yes; but how did I myself explain existence? existence? the devil? sin? How did I explain evil? redemption?"
"But I know nothing and can know nothing except what is told me and every one else."
And now it seemed to him that not one of these Church dogmas was inimical to the great objects of life,—faith in God, in goodness.
On the contrary, all tended to produce that greatest of miracles, that which consists in enabling the whole world, with its millions of human beings, young and old, the muzhik and Lvof, and Kitty and peasants and tsars, married and single, to comprehend the same great truths, so as to live that life of the soul which alone is worth living, and which is our only aim.
Lying on his back, he looked up into the high, cloud- less sky. "Do I not know," thought he, "that that is infinity of space, and not a vault of blue stretching above me? But, however I strain my sight, I can see only a vaulted dome; and, in spite of my knowledge of infinite space, I have more satisfaction in looking at it as a blue, vaulted dome, than when I try to look beyond."
Levin stopped thinking. He listened to the mysterious voices which seemed to wake joyfully in him.
"Is it really faith?" he thought, fearing to believe in his happiness. "My God, I thank Thee!" he cried; and he swallowed down the sobs that arose, and brushed away with both hands the tears that filled his eyes.