“Yes, but you have killed him,” was Soloveitchik’s obstinate reply.
“In that case you had better appeal to the good God who made us meet.”
“You could have stopped him by seizing hold of his hands.”
“In a moment like that one doesn’t reflect. And how would that have helped matters? His code of honour demanded revenge at any price. I could not have held his hands for ever. It would only have been an additional insult, nothing more.”
Soloveitchik limply waved his hand, and did not reply. Imperceptibly the darkness closed round them. The fires of sunset paled, and beneath the deserted sheds the shadows grew deeper, as if in these lonely places mysterious, dreadful beings were about to take up their abode during the night. Their noiseless footsteps may have made Sultan uneasy, for he suddenly crept out of his kennel and sat in front of it, rattling his chain.
“Perhaps you’re right,” observed Soloveitchik sadly, “but was it absolutely necessary? Would it not have been better if you had borne the blow?”
“Better?” said Sanine. “A blow’s always a painful thing. And why? For what reason?”
“Oh! do, please, hear me out,” interrupted Soloveitchik, with a pleading gesture. “It might have been better—”
“Oh! Soloveitchik,” replied Sanine, with a touch of annoyance, “a truce to that silly old notion about moral victory; and a false notion, too. Moral victory does not consist in offering one’s cheek to the smiter, but in being right before one’s own conscience. How this is achieved is a matter of chance, of circumstances. There is nothing so horrible as slavery. Yet most horrible of all is it when a man whose inmost soul rebels against coercion and force yet submits thereto in the name of some power that is mightier than he.”
Soloveitchik clasped his head with both hands, as one distraught.
“I’ve not got the brains to understand it all,” he said plaintively. “And I don’t in the least know how I ought to live.”
“Why should you know? Live as the bird flies. If it wants to move its right wing, it moves it. If it wants to fly round a tree, it does so.”
“Yes, a bird may do that, but I’m not a bird; I’m a man,” said Soloveitchik with naive earnestness.
Sanine laughed outright, and for a moment the merry sound echoed through the gloomy courtyard.