Perhaps he would not have said a word the whole evening, but suddenly he somehow decided to speak.
He spoke with extreme seriousness, so that everyone suddenly turned to him with curiosity.
"Essentially, gentlemen, what I want to say is that there were such frequent famines back then.
I've heard about it, too, though I have a poor knowledge of history.
But it seems it must have been so.
When I found myself in the Swiss mountains, I was terribly astonished by the ruins of the ancient knightly castles, built on the sides of the mountains, on steep cliffs, and at least half a mile straight up (meaning several miles by little paths).
We know what a castle is: it's a whole mountain of stones.
Terrible, impossible labor!
And, of course, they were built by all those poor people, the vassals.
Besides that, they had to pay all sorts of taxes and support the clergy.
How could they feed themselves and work the land?
There were few of them then, they must have been terribly starved, and there may have been literally nothing to eat.
I even used to think sometimes: how is it that these people did not cease altogether then and that nothing happened to them, how could they hold out and endure?
Lebedev is undoubtedly right that there were cannibals, and perhaps a great many of them; only what I don't know is why precisely he mixed monks into it and what does he mean to say by that?"
"Probably that in the twelfth century only monks could be eaten, because only monks were fat," observed Gavrila Ardalionovich.
"A most splendid and correct thought!" cried Lebedev. "For he never even touched a layman.
Not a single layman to sixty head of clergy, and this is a horrible thought, a historical thought, a statistical thought, finally, and it is from such facts that the knowing man constructs history; for it is asserted with numerical exactitude that the clergy lived at least sixty times more happily and freely than the rest of mankind at that time.
And were, perhaps, at least sixty times fatter than the rest of mankind . . ."
"An exaggeration, an exaggeration, Lebedev!" they guffawed all around.
"I agree that it's a historical thought, but what are you getting at?" the prince went on asking. (He spoke with such seriousness and such an absence of any joking or mockery of Lebedev, whom everyone laughed at, that his tone, amidst the general tone of the whole company, involuntarily became comical; a little more and they would have started making fun of him as well, but he did not notice it.)
"Don't you see he's crazy, Prince?" Evgeny Pavlovich leaned towards him.
"I was told here earlier that he went crazy over being a lawyer and making speeches, and that he wants to pass an examination.
I'm expecting an excellent parody."
"I'm getting at a tremendous conclusion," Lebedev meanwhile thundered.
"But first of all let us analyze the psychological and juridical condition of the criminal.
We see that the criminal, or, so to speak, my client, despite all the impossibility of finding other eatables, shows more than once, in the course of his peculiar career, a desire to repent, and avoids clergymen.
We see it clearly from the facts: it is mentioned that he did, after all, eat five or six babies—a comparatively insignificant number, but portentous in another respect.
It is obvious that, suffering from terrible remorse (for my client is a religious and conscientious man, as I shall prove), and in order to diminish his sin as far as possible, six times, by way of experiment, he changed monastic food for lay food.
That it was by way of experiment is, again, unquestionable; for if it was only for gastronomic variety, the number six would be too insignificant: why only six and not thirty? (I'm considering a fifty-fifty proportion.) But if it was only an experiment, only out of despair before the fear of blaspheming and insulting the Church, then the number six becomes all too comprehensible; for six experiments, to satisfy the remorse of conscience, are quite sufficient, because the experiments could not have been successful.
And, first of all, in my opinion, a baby is too small, that is, not of large size, so that for a given period of time he would need three or five times the number of lay babies as of clergymen, so that the sin, while diminishing on the one hand, would in the final end be increased on the other, if not in quality, then in quantity.
In reasoning this way, gentlemen, I am, of course, descending into the heart of the twelfth-century criminal.
For my own part, as a nineteenth-century man, I might have reasoned differently, of which I inform you, so there's no need to go grinning at me, gentlemen, and for you, General, it is quite unsuitable.
Second, a baby, in my personal opinion, is not nourishing, is perhaps even too sweet and cloying, so that, while not satisfying the need, it leaves one with nothing but remorse of conscience.
Now for the conclusion, the finale, gentlemen, the finale which contains the answer to one of the greatest questions of that time and ours!
The criminal ends by going and denouncing himself to the clergy, and surrenders to the hands of the authorities.
One may ask, what tortures did he face, considering the time, what wheels, fires, and flames?
Who prompted him to go and denounce himself?
Why not simply stop at the number sixty, keeping your secret till your last breath?
Why not simply give up monks and live in penitence as a recluse?
Why, finally, not become a monk himself?
Now here is the answer!
It means there was something stronger than fire and flame and even than a twenty-year habit!
It means there was a thought stronger than all calamities, crop failures, torture, plague, leprosy, and all that hell, which mankind would have been unable to endure without that thought which binds men together, guides their hearts, and makes fruitful the wellsprings of the life of thought!
Show me something resembling such a force in our age of crime and railways . . . that is, I should have said: our age of steam and railways, but I say: in our age of crime and railways, because I'm drunk, but just!
Show me a thought binding present-day mankind together that is half as strong as in those centuries.
And dare to say, finally, that the wellsprings of life have not weakened, have not turned muddy under this 'star,' under this network that ensnares people.
And don't try to frighten me with your prosperity, your wealth, the rarity of famines, and the speed of communication!
There is greater wealth, but less force; the binding idea is gone; everything has turned soft, everything is overstewed, everyone is overstewed!
We're all, all, all overstewed! . . .
But enough, that's not the point now; the point is, shouldn't we give orders, my highly esteemed Prince, about the little snack prepared for our guests?"