‘Yes, but they’re the same as me. They’re not other people,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘Other people – your “neighbours”, as you and Marie call them – they’re the source of all error and harm. Who are your “neighbours”? Your peasants down in Kiev that you want to do so much good for.’ And he mocked Pierre with a challenging look, deliberately provoking him.
‘You can’t be serious,’ said Pierre, more excited than ever. ‘What error and harm can there be in my wanting to . . . well, I’ve not done much and I’ve done it very badly . . . but still, wanting to do good, and getting a little bit done? Where’s the harm if miserable people like our peasants – and they are people like you and me, people living and dying with no idea of God and what truth is beyond icons and ridiculous prayers – now get some education and console themselves by believing in an after-life where there is retribution, reward and consolation? When nobody looks after people dying of disease while it’s so easy to give them some real practical help, what harm and error can there be in my providing doctors, and a hospital and a home for old people? And isn’t there tangible, incontestable good when a peasant with his wife and child have no rest day or night, and I give them some leisure and rest?’ said Pierre, lisping as he gabbled. ‘And I’ve done that – not very well, I admit, and not enough – but I have done something in that direction, and you’re not going to persuade me I haven’t done something good, and you’re also not going to persuade me that you really believe what you’re saying. And the main thing is this,’ Pierre continued, ‘I know, I know for an absolute certainty, that the pleasure of doing good like this is the only real happiness in life.’
‘Oh well, if you put it like that, it’s different,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘I’m building a house and garden – you’re building hospitals. Either way it passes the time. But what’s right and what’s good – that’ll have to be decided by somebody who knows everything. We can’t decide. So, if it’s an argument you want,’ he added, ‘you’ve got one.’
They got up from the table and sat out on the steps, because there was no verandah.
‘Come on, then,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘You talk about schools,’ he went on, bending one finger back. ‘Education and all that. In other words, you want to bring him’ (he pointed to a passing peasant who was doffing his cap) ‘out of his animal condition and give him spiritual needs. Well, as I see it, the only form of happiness is animal happiness, and you want to take that away from him. I envy him, while you’re trying to turn him into me, but without giving him my mind, my feelings and my money. Then you talk about giving him less work. But to my mind, he needs his physical labour, it’s a condition of his existence, every bit as much as you and I need our intellectual work. You can’t help thinking. I go to bed at nearly three in the morning, thoughts keep coming into my mind and I can’t get to sleep. I toss and turn and I stay awake till morning because I’m thinking, and I can’t help thinking, just as he can’t help ploughing and mowing. If he stops he won’t be able to go for a drink and he might fall ill. Just as I couldn’t stand his terrible physical labour, it would kill me in a week, my idleness would be too much for him, he would grow fat and die. Then the third thing – what was the other thing you said?’ Prince Andrey had bent back his third finger.
‘Oh yes, I know. Hospitals, medicine. He has a stroke and he’s dying, but no, you have him bled and he gets better. Now he’s going to be an invalid for the next ten years, a burden to everybody. Let him die – it’s a lot simpler and it’s easier on him. Lots more like him are being born all the time – there’s no shortage of them. I wouldn’t mind if you were worried about losing a labourer – that’s how I see him – but you want to cure him out of brotherly love. Well, he doesn’t need it. And besides, who said medicine ever cured anybody? Killed lots of people – oh yes!’ he said, scowling and turning away from Pierre.
Prince Andrey put his arguments so precisely that he had obviously gone through them many times before in his mind. And he was gabbling away like a man who has not spoken for a long time. His eyes shone brighter as his reasoning became more and more despondent.
‘Oh, this is awful, awful!’ said Pierre. ‘I can’t see how you can go on living with ideas like these. I used to have my moments when I thought like that, not all that long ago in Moscow or out on the road, but when it happens I feel so low and I’m not really living at all, everything seems vile . . . to me most of all. When it happens I can’t eat and I don’t wash . . . what’s it like with you?’
‘Oh, you ought to wash. It’s unclean,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘It’s the other way round. You have to try and make your life as enjoyable as you can. Here I am alive, and it’s not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.’
