IV
On one of the painfully monotonous days of the second month of Svetlogoúb’s imprisonment, the inspector, while making his daily round, handed him a little book with a gilt cross on its brown binding, saying that the Governor’s wife had visited the prison and had left some Testaments, and that permission had been granted to distribute them among the prisoners. Svetlogoúb thanked him, and smiled slightly as he put the book on the little table screwed fast to the wall. When the inspector had gone, Svetlogoúb informed his neighbour by tapping that the inspector had been, and had said nothing new, but had left a Testament. The neighbour replied that he also had received one.
After dinner Svetlogoúb opened the book, the pages of which stuck together from the damp, and began to read. He had never before read the gospels as a book, and knew them only as he had gone through them with the Scripture teacher at school, and as the priests and deacons chanted them in church.
“Chapter 1: The book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham … Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judah …” and he went on to read: “Zorubbabel begat Abiud. …”
All this was just what he expected—some kind of involved, worthless jargon. Had he not been in prison he could not have read a single page to the end; but here he went on reading for the sake of the mechanical act of reading—“Just like Gógol’s Petroúsha,” he thought to himself. He read the first chapter, about the Virgin Birth and the prophecy which said that the newborn child would be named Emmanuel, which meant “God with us.”
“But where does the prophecy come in?” he thought, and went on reading the second chapter, about the wandering star; and the third, about John who ate locusts; and the fourth, about some devil who suggested to Christ a gymnastic performance from a roof. All this seemed so uninteresting to him that, in spite of the dullness of the prison, he was about to close the book and start on his usual evening occupation—flea-hunting on the shirt he took off—when suddenly he remembered how at an examination of the fifth class at school he had forgotten one of the Beatitudes, and how the rosy-faced, curly-headed priest had suddenly grown angry and given him a bad mark. He could not recollect the text, so he began reading the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” he read. “This might relate also to us,” he thought. “Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you. … Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.”
“This quite plainly refers to us,” he thought, and read farther. When he had read the whole of the fifth chapter, he became thoughtful. “Do not be angry, don’t commit adultery, bear with evil, love your enemies. … Yes, if all men lived so,” he thought, “there would be no need of revolutions.” As he read farther he entered more and more into the spirit of the passages which were quite comprehensible; and the longer he read the more the idea grew on him that something very important was said in that book—something important, simple and touching; something he had never heard before, and which yet seemed to have long been familiar.
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matthew 16:24–26).
“Yes, yes—that is it!” he suddenly exclaimed, with tears in his eyes. “That is just what I wished to do. … Yes, I wished just that: just to give my soul, not to keep it safe, but to give it. … That is where joy lies—that is life! … I have done a great deal for other people’s sake, for the sake of human approbation—not the approbation of the crowd, but for the good opinion of those I respected and loved: Natásha and Dmítry Shelómof. And then I doubted and was agitated. I felt at ease only when I did something my soul demanded—when I wished to give myself, my whole self.”
From that moment Svetlogoúb spent most of his time reading and pondering what he read in that book. This reading not only evoked in him a glow of tender emotion which carried him beyond the conditions in which he found himself, but also evoked an activity of mind such as he had never before experienced. He wondered why people did not all live as they were told to in that book. “After all, to live so, is good not for one only, but for all. We only need live like that, and there will be no sorrow and no want, only blessedness.”
“If only this would end—if only I could be free once more,” he sometimes thought. “After all, they will let me out sooner or later, or send me to penal servitude—no matter which. It is possible to live like that anywhere … and I will live so! I can and must live so … not to live so is madness!”