THE GRAND INQUISITOR
259
striving with might and main not so much to master them for their
own sake as to extract from them at all costs a meaning or a truth
that would dispel the darkness in which men live and redeem their
suffering. "Old People" is in fact a little masterpiece that, in its re–
covery of the past, recalls us to the very origins of Dostoevsky's com–
plex of ideas.
It
discloses, if not the personal, then at least the intellec–
tual conditions under which he formed some of his powerful obses–
sions, as, for instance, the obsession with the personality of Christ
to which he at all times yielded even at the expense of Christianity
itself.
"Dost Thou know that ages will pass, and humanity will pro–
claim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, and therefore
no sin; there is only hunger. 'Feed men, and then ask of them vir–
tue!' that's what they'll write on their banner, which they will raise
against Thee." Thus begins the passage in the Legend directly echo–
ing Belinsky's thought.
It
is by no means the only passage of its kind,
as the account given in "Old People" sufficiently makes clear.4
Belinsky was not primarily a reflective person. He was above all
an enthusiast, always and throughout his life. My first novel,
Poor Folk,
delighted him . . . but then, from the first days
of
our acquaintance, he
threw himself with the most simple-hearted haste into the task of con–
verting me to his creed. . . . I found him to be a passionate socialist,
but it was his atheism rather that he at once began urging upon me.
There is much that is noteworthy in that, for it reveals his astonishing
intuition and extraordinary ability to sound an idea to its very depth.
Some two years ago the International began one of its manifestoes with
the significant declaration: "Weare first of all a society of atheists,"
that is to say, it began with the essence of the matter. Likewise Belinsky.
Valuing above all reason, science, and realism, he nevertheless under–
stood better than anyone else that by themselves reason, science, and
realism could produce an antheap but not the social "harmony" in
which a human being would be able to dispose of his life properly. He
knew that the moral principle is at the root of everything. As for the
new moral principle of socialism . . . he believed in it fervently and
without reflection; in this respect there was nothing but enthusiasm in
his approach. But as a socialist, knowing as he did that the revolution
4 The translation is by the present writer. I have found the English version
of
The Diary of a Writer,
brought out in this country in 1949, to be virtually
unusable, inept in point of style and frequently far from accurate in rendering
the plain meaning of the text.
