“Volodya,” Vera Semyonovna interrupted his critical effusions, “I’ve been haunted by a strange idea since yesterday.  I keep wondering where we should all be if human life were ordered on the basis of non-resistance to evil?

“In all probability, nowhere.  Non-resistance to evil would give the full rein to the criminal will, and, to say nothing of civilisation, this would leave not one stone standing upon another anywhere on earth.”

“What would be left?”

“Bashi-Bazouke and brothels.  In my next article I’ll talk about that perhaps.  Thank you for reminding me.”

And a week later my friend kept his promise.  That was just at the period—­in the eighties—­when people were beginning to talk and write of non-resistance, of the right to judge, to punish, to make war; when some people in our set were beginning to do without servants, to retire into the country, to work on the land, and to renounce animal food and carnal love.

After reading her brother’s article, Vera Semyonovna pondered and hardly perceptibly shrugged her shoulders.

“Very nice!” she said.  “But still there’s a great deal I don’t understand.  For instance, in Leskov’s story ’Belonging to the Cathedral’ there is a queer gardener who sows for the benefit of all—­for customers, for beggars, and any who care to steal.  Did he behave sensibly?”

From his sister’s tone and expression Vladimir Semyonitch saw that she did not like his article, and, almost for the first time in his life, his vanity as an author sustained a shock.  With a shade of irritation he answered: 

“Theft is immoral.  To sow for thieves is to recognise the right of thieves to existence.  What would you think if I were to establish a newspaper and, dividing it into sections, provide for blackmailing as well as for liberal ideas?  Following the example of that gardener, I ought, logically, to provide a section for blackmailers, the intellectual scoundrels?  Yes.”

Vera Semyonovna made no answer.  She got up from the table, moved languidly to the sofa and lay down.

“I don’t know, I know nothing about it,” she said musingly.  “You are probably right, but it seems to me, I feel somehow, that there’s something false in our resistance to evil, as though there were something concealed or unsaid.  God knows, perhaps our methods of resisting evil belong to the category of prejudices which have become so deeply rooted in us, that we are incapable of parting with them, and therefore cannot form a correct judgment of them.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know how to explain to you.  Perhaps man is mistaken in thinking that he is obliged to resist evil and has a right to do so, just as he is mistaken in thinking, for instance, that the heart looks like an ace of hearts.  It is very possible in resisting evil we ought not to use force, but to use what is the very opposite of force—­if you, for instance, don’t want this picture stolen from you, you ought to give it away rather than lock it up. . . .”