Ivanov watched him. “That’s better,” he said with a fleeting smile.
“Monologues in the form of a dialogue are a useful institution.
I hope I reproduced the voice of the tempter effectively.
A pity that the opposite party is not represented.
But that is part of its tricks, that it never lets itself be drawn into a rational discussion.
It always attacks a man in defenceless moments, when he is alone and in some effective mise en scene: from burning thorn-bushes or cloud-covered mountain tops—and with a special preference for a sleeping victim.
The methods of the great moralist are pretty unfair and theatrical. ...”
Rubashov was no longer listening.
Walking up and down, he was wondering whether to-day, if Arlova were still alive he would sacrifice her again.
This problem fascinated him; it seemed to contain the answer to all other questions. ...
He stopped in front of Ivanov and asked him:
“Do you remember ‘Raskolnikov’?”
Ivanov smiled at him with irony.
“It was to be expected that you would sooner or later come to that.
Crime and Punishment ...
You are really becoming childish or senile. ...”
“Wait a bit.
Wait a bit,” said Rubashov, walking up and down agitatedly.
“All this is just talk, but now we are getting nearer the point.
As far as I remember, the problem is, whether the student Raskolnikov has the right to kill the old woman?
He is young and talented; he has as it were an unredeemed pledge on life in his pocket; she is old and utterly useless to the world.
But the equation does not stand.
In the first place, circumstances oblige him to murder a second person; that is the unforeseeable and illogical consequence of an apparently simple and logical action.
Secondly, the equation collapses in any case, because Raskolnikov discovers that twice two are not four when the mathematical units are human beings. ...”
“Really,” said Ivanov. “If you want to hear my opinion, every copy of the book should be burnt.
Consider a moment what this humanitarian fog-philosophy would lead to, if we were to take it literally; if we were to stick to the precept that the individual is sacrosanct, and that we must not treat human lives according to the rules of arithmetic.
That would mean that a battalion commander may not sacrifice a patrolling party to save the regiment. That we may not sacrifice fools like Bogrov, and must risk our coastal towns being shot to pieces in a couple of years. ...”
Rubashov shook his head:
“Your examples are all drawn from war—that is, from abnormal circumstances.”
“Since the invention of the steam engine,„ replied Ivanov, “the world has been permanently in an abnormal state; the wars and revolutions are just the visible expressions of this state.
Your Raskolnikov is, however, a fool and a criminal; not because he behaves logically in killing the old woman, but because he is doing it in his personal interest.
The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers. ...
If Raskolnikov had bumped off the old woman at the command of the Party—for example, to increase strike funds or to install an illegal Press—then the equation would stand, and the novel with its misleading problem would never have been written, and so much the better for humanity.”
Rubashov did not answer.
He was still fascinated by the problem as to whether to-day, after the experiences of the last few months and days, he would again send Arlova to her death.
He did not know.
Logically, Ivanov was right in everything he said; the invisible opponent was silent, and only indicated its existence by a dull feeling of uneasiness.
And in that, too, Ivanov was right, that this behaviour of the “invisible opponent”, in never exposing itself to argument and only attacking people at defenceless moments, showed it in a very dubious light. ...
“I don’t approve of mixing ideologies,” Ivanov continued. “’There are only two conceptions of human ethics, and they are at opposite poles.
One of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts that the rules of arithmetic are not to be applied to human units.
The other starts from the basic principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community—which may dispose of it as an experimentation rabbit or a sacrificial lamb.
The first conception could be called anti-vivisection morality, the second, vivisection morality.
Humbugs and dilettantes have always tried to mix the two conceptions; in practice, it is impossible.
Whoever is burdened with power and responsibility finds out on the first occasion that he has to choose; and he is fatally driven to the second alternative.
Do you know, since the establishment of Christianity as a state religion, a single example of a state which really followed a Christian policy?
You can’t point out one.
In times of need—and politics are chronically in a time of need—the rulers were always able to evoke ‘exceptional circumstances’, which demanded exceptional measures of defence.
Since the existence of nations and classes, they live in a permanent state of mutual self-defence, which forces them to defer to another time the putting into practice of humanism. ...”
Rubashov looked through the window.
The melted snow had again frozen and sparkled, an irregular surface of yellow-white crystals.