“Twice two’s four, and a stone’s a stone.  Here to-morrow we have a duel.  You and I will say it’s stupid and absurd, that the duel is out of date, that there is no real difference between the aristocratic duel and the drunken brawl in the pot-house, and yet we shall not stop, we shall go there and fight.  So there is some force stronger than our reasoning.  We shout that war is plunder, robbery, atrocity, fratricide; we cannot look upon blood without fainting; but the French or the Germans have only to insult us for us to feel at once an exaltation of spirit; in the most genuine way we shout ‘Hurrah!’ and rush to attack the foe.  You will invoke the blessing of God on our weapons, and our valour will arouse universal and general enthusiasm.  Again it follows that there is a force, if not higher, at any rate stronger, than us and our philosophy.  We can no more stop it than that cloud which is moving upwards over the sea.  Don’t be hypocritical, don’t make a long nose at it on the sly; and don’t say, ‘Ah, old-fashioned, stupid!  Ah, it’s inconsistent with Scripture!’ but look it straight in the face, recognise its rational lawfulness, and when, for instance, it wants to destroy a rotten, scrofulous, corrupt race, don’t hinder it with your pilules and misunderstood quotations from the Gospel.  Leskov has a story of a conscientious Danila who found a leper outside the town, and fed and warmed him in the name of love and of Christ.  If that Danila had really loved humanity, he would have dragged the leper as far as possible from the town, and would have flung him in a pit, and would have gone to save the healthy.  Christ, I hope, taught us a rational, intelligent, practical love.”

“What a fellow you are!” laughed the deacon.  “You don’t believe in Christ.  Why do you mention His name so often?”

“Yes, I do believe in Him.  Only, of course, in my own way, not in yours.  Oh, deacon, deacon!” laughed the zoologist; he put his arm round the deacon’s waist, and said gaily:  “Well?  Are you coming with us to the duel to-morrow?”

“My orders don’t allow it, or else I should come.”

“What do you mean by ’orders’?”

“I have been consecrated.  I am in a state of grace.”

“Oh, deacon, deacon,” repeated Von Koren, laughing, “I love talking to you.”

“You say you have faith,” said the deacon.  “What sort of faith is it?  Why, I have an uncle, a priest, and he believes so that when in time of drought he goes out into the fields to pray for rain, he takes his umbrella and leather overcoat for fear of getting wet through on his way home.  That’s faith!  When he speaks of Christ, his face is full of radiance, and all the peasants, men and women, weep floods of tears.  He would stop that cloud and put all those forces you talk about to flight.  Yes . . . faith moves mountains.”

The deacon laughed and slapped the zoologist on the shoulder.

“Yes . . .” he went on; “here you are teaching all the time, fathoming the depths of the ocean, dividing the weak and the strong, writing books and challenging to duels—­and everything remains as it is; but, behold! some feeble old man will mutter just one word with a holy spirit, or a new Mahomet, with a sword, will gallop from Arabia, and everything will be topsy-turvy, and in Europe not one stone will be left standing upon another.”