“Come, let us argue the matter,” said Prince Andrey. “You
talk of schools,” he went on, crooking one finger, “instruction, and so forth,
that is, you want to draw him” (he pointed to a peasant who passed by them
taking off his cap), “out of his animal condition and to give him spiritual
needs, but it seems to me that the only possible happiness is animal happiness,
and you want to deprive him of it. I envy him, while you are trying to make him
into me, without giving him my circumstances. Another thing you speak of is
lightening his toil. But to my notions, physical labour is as much a necessity
for him, as much a condition of his existence, as intellectual work is for me
and for you. You can’t help thinking. I go to bed at three o’clock, thoughts
come into my mind, and I can’t go to sleep; I turn over, and can’t sleep till
morning, because I’m thinking, and I can’t help thinking, just as he can’t help
ploughing and mowing. If he didn’t, he would go to the tavern, or become ill.
Just as I could not stand his terrible physical labour, but should die of it in
a week, so he could not stand my physical inactivity, he would grow fat and
die. The third thing—what was it you talked about?”
Prince Andrey crooked his third finger.
“Oh, yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit and dies, but you have him bled and cure him. He will drag about an invalid for ten years, a burden to every one. It would be ever so much simpler and more comfortable for him to die. Others are born, and there are always plenty. If you grudge losing a labourer—that’s how I look at him—but you want to cure him from love for him. But he has no need of that. And besides, what a notion that medicine has ever cured any one! Killed them—yes!” he said, scowling and turning away from Pierre.
[translated by Constance Garnett]