Resurrection, Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy [books to read this summer .txt] 📗

been increased not alone by the criminals corrupted by

punishment but also by those lawful criminals, the judges,

procureurs, magistrates and jailers, who judge and punish men.

Nekhludoff now understood that society and order in general

exists not because of these lawful criminals who judge and punish

others, but because in spite of men being thus depraved, they

still pity and love one another.

 

In hopes of finding a confirmation of this thought in the Gospel,

Nekhludoff began reading it from the beginning. When he had read

the Sermon on the Mount, which had always touched him, he saw in

it for the first time to-day not beautiful abstract thoughts,

setting forth for the most part exaggerated and impossible

demands, but simple, clear, practical laws. If these laws were

carried out in practice (and this was quite possible) they would

establish perfectly new and surprising conditions of social life,

in which the violence that filled Nekhludoff with such

indignation would cease of itself. Not only this, but the

greatest blessing that is obtainable to men, the Kingdom of

Heaven on Earth would he established. There were five of these

laws.

 

The first (Matt. v. 21-26), that man should not only do no

murder, but not even be angry with his brother, should not

consider any one worthless: “Raca,” and if he has quarrelled with

any one he should make it up with him before bringing his gift to

God—i.e., before praying.

 

The second (Matt. v. 27-32), that man should not only not commit

adultery but should not even seek for enjoyment in a woman’s

beauty, and if he has once come together with a woman he should

never be faithless to her.

 

The third (Matt. 33-37), that man should never bind himself by

oath.

 

The fourth (Matt. 38-42), that man should not only not demand an

eye for an eye, but when struck on one cheek should hold out the

other, should forgive an offence and bear it humbly, and never

refuse the service others demand of him.

 

The fifth (Matt. 43-48), that man should not only not hate his

enemy and not fight him, but love him, help him, serve him.

 

Nekhludoff sat staring at the lamp and his heart stood still.

Recalling the monstrous confusion of the life we lead, he

distinctly saw what that life could be if men were brought up to

obey these rules, and rapture such as he had long not felt filled

his soul, just as if after long days of weariness and suffering

he had suddenly found ease and freedom.

 

He did not sleep all night, and as it happens to many and many a

man who reads the Gospels he understood for the first time the

full meaning of the words read so often before but passed by

unnoticed. He imbibed all these necessary, important and joyful

revelations as a sponge imbibes water. And all he read seemed so

familiar and seemed to confirm, to form into a conception, what

he had known long ago, but had never realised and never quite

believed. Now he realised and believed it, and not only realised

and believed that if men would obey these laws they would obtain

the highest blessing they can attain to, he also realised and

believed that the only duty of every man is to fulfil these laws;

that in this lies the only reasonable meaning of life, that every

stepping aside from these laws is a mistake which is immediately

followed by retribution. This flowed from the whole of the

teaching, and was most strongly and clearly illustrated in the

parable of the vineyard.

 

The husbandman imagined that the vineyard in which they were sent

to work for their master was their own, that all that was in was

made for them, and that their business was to enjoy life in this

vineyard, forgetting the Master and killing all those who

reminded them of his existence. “Are we do not doing the same,”

Nekhludoff thought, “when we imagine ourselves to be masters of

our lives, and that life is given us for enjoyment? This

evidently is an incongruity. We were sent here by some one’s will

and for some reason. And we have concluded that we live only for

our own joy, and of course we feel unhappy as labourers do when

not fulfilling their Master’s orders. The Master’s will is

expressed in these commandments. If men will only fulfil these

laws, the Kingdom of Heaven will be established on earth, and men

will receive the greatest good that they can attain to.

 

“‘Seek ye first the Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these

things shall be added unto you.’

 

“And so here it is, the business of my life. Scarcely have I

finished one and another has commenced.” And a perfectly new life

dawned that night for Nekhludoff, not because he had entered into

new conditions of life, but because everything he did after that

night had a new and quite different significance than before. How

this new period of his life will end time alone will prove.