PASTERNAK'S
MESSAGE
of spirit. ... But his intelligence lacked the gift of the fortuitous, that
power which, by unforeseen discoveries, violates the sterile harmony of
the foreseeable. By this same token, if he were really to do good, the
consistency of his principles lacked the inconsistency of the heart. . . .
Pasternak certainly does not hesitate to make his hero say what
he thinks of Bolshevik power and its "non-truth." But perhaps his es–
sential judgment on what happened to Russian society under the new
regime is summed up in these few words : "They had changed their
habits, having by now accepted the revolution, and they said 'That's
the way it is,' instead of saying 'Yes' or 'It's right.'''
Naturally, so serene and solemn a thought as that expressed in this
novel implies that a man has reached that state of inner conviction for
which there is no other adjective but "religious." The final point of
Pasternak's vision is the message of Christ, and what Christ means to
him is absolute faith in man's innerness and freedom:
You do not understand that one can be an atheist, not even know
if
God exists or for what, and yet at the same time know that man
does not live in nature but in history and that ... history has been es–
tablished by Christ and the Gospels are its foundation. But what is
history? It is to begin the century-long work so as to succeed little by
little to solve the mystery of death and in the future to overcome it.
... For discoveries of this kind one needs spiritual equipment, and
in
this sense all the data has already been given to us by the Gospels.
. . . First of all, love for one's neighbor, that supreme form of living
energy.... And then, the essential reasons of the man of today, with–
out which he would be unthinkable, namely, the ideals of free indi–
viduality and of life regarded as sacrifice.
And, further on:
If
the beast which sleeps in man could be held down by the threat of
punishment, it doesn't matter what punishment, or with a reward after
death, the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer in
the circus with his whip, not the prophet who has sacrificed himself.
But this is the point: for centuries not the cudgel but simply an inner
music has placed man above the beast . . . the irresistible power of
disarmed truth, the attractive power of the example.
And, in a singularly symbolic discourse, put
in
the mouth of an inspired,
prophetic woman: "The Gospels, which counterpose the Sabbath to
the ordinary days of the week, intends, despite all kinds of coercion, to
edify life."
To read these passages as though they were the novel's ultimate
message, indeed its logical conclusion, would be to falsify them. They
are the elan of its spirit and should be understood as such. Tolstoyan
