Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

soul desires does not prove that your fraudulent practices can give it,” he added with a smile.

“In what do you see we are fraudulent?” asked Pamphilius.

“Your fraud consists in this: that in order to free men from the evils connected with the facts of life, you repudiate all the facts of life⁠—life itself. In order to free yourselves from disenchantment, you repudiate enchantment, you repudiate marriage itself.”

“We do not repudiate marriage,” said Pamphilius.

“If not marriage, then you repudiate love.”

“On the contrary, we repudiate everything except love. For us it is the chief cornerstone of everything.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Julius. “As far as I have heard from others and from yourself, and from the fact that you are not married yet, though you are as old as I am, I conclude that you don’t have marriages among you. Those of you who are already married continue married, but the rest of you do not enter into new relations. You do not take pains to perpetuate the human race. And if there were no other people besides you, the human race would have long ago perished,” said Julius, repeating what he had many times heard.

“That is unjust,” said Pamphilius. “It is true we do not make it our aim to perpetuate the human race, and we take no anxious care about this, as I have many times heard from your wise men. We take for granted that our Heavenly Father has already provided for this: our aim is simply to live in accordance with His will. If the perpetuation of the race is consonant with His will, then it will be perpetuated; if not, then it will come to an end; this is not our business or our care; our care is to live in accordance with His will. His will is expressed both in our sermons and in our revelation, where it is said that the husband shall cleave unto the wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. Marriage amongst us is not only not forbidden, but is encouraged by our elders and teachers. The difference between marriage amongst us and marriage amongst you consists solely in this: that our law has revealed to us that everyone who looks lustfully on a woman commits a sin; and therefore we and our women, instead of adorning ourselves and stimulating lust, try to avoid it as much as possible, so that the feeling of love, like that between brothers and sisters, may be stronger than that of lust, for one woman, which you call love.”

“But still you cannot suppress the feeling for beauty,” said Julius. “I am convinced, for example, that the beautiful young girl with whom you were carrying grapes, in spite of her garb, which concealed her charming figure, must awaken in you the feeling of love to a woman.”

“I do not know as yet,” said Pamphilius, reddening. “I have not thought about her beauty. You are the first person that has spoken of it. She is to me only as a sister. But I will continue what I was just going to say to you concerning the difference between our form of marriage and yours. The variance arises from the fact that, among you, lust, under the name of beauty and love and the service of the goddess Venus, is maintained and expressed in men. With us it is the contrary; carnal desire is not regarded as an evil⁠—for God has created no evil⁠—but a good, which becomes an evil when it is not in its place⁠—a temptation, as we call it; and we try to avoid it by all the means in our power. And that is why I am not married as yet, though very possibly I might marry tomorrow.”

“But what decides this?”

“The will of God.”

“How do you find it out?”

“If one never seeks for its indications, one will never see them; but if one is all the time on the lookout for them, they become clear, as to you omens by sacrifices and birds are clear. And as you have your wise men who interpret for you the will of the gods by their wisdom, and by the vitals of the sacrificed victim, and by the flight of birds, so have we our wise men who explain to us the will of the Father by the revelation of Christ, by the promptings of their hearts, and the thoughts of other men, and chiefly by love to them.”

“But all this is very indefinite,” objected Julius. “What shows you, for example, when and whom you ought to marry? When I was about to marry, I had a choice between three girls. These girls were selected from the rest because they were beautiful and rich, and my father was satisfied whichever one of them I chose. Out of the three I chose my Eulampia because she was more beautiful and more attractive than the others. But what will govern you in your choice?”

“In order to answer you,” said Pamphilius, “I must inform you, first of all, that as according to our doctrine all men are equal before our Father, so likewise they are equal before us both in their station and in their spiritual and physical qualities, and consequently our choice (if I may use this word so meaningless to us) cannot be in any way circumscribed. Any one of all the men and women of the world may be the wife of a Christian man or the husband of a Christian woman.”

“That would make it still more impossible to decide,” said Julius.

“I will tell you what our elder told me as to the difference between a Christian and a pagan marriage. The pagan⁠—you, for example⁠—chooses a wife who, according to his idea, will cause him, personally, more delight than anyone else. In this choice his eyes wander about, and it is hard to decide; the more, because the enjoyment is before him. But the Christian has no such choice; or rather the choice for his personal enjoyment